GNT: The Serial Killer Serial
Daily Dose
Great News Town, a mystery/thriller about a fictional Illinois town that is terrorized by a serial killer, opens on June 26, 1984. So on June 26, 2012, a free, serialized version of the book was launched on this Web site. Weekly installments are posted on Thursdays. Check back often.
Once in a blue moon
Have you heard? There's a rare blue moon this month on July 31. To celebrate, my latest mystery Full Moon Friday is free on Kindle July 30-31. Get yours now! Just go to Amazon and download. Don't have a kindle? Read it on your tablet or smartphone with a free Kindle App.
GREAT NEWS!
Even if you missed most of the serial killer serial, you can catch up this summer. The Kindle version of Great News Town is just 99 cents through the end of June. The book opens on June 26 with the first murder. So you're just in time!
Is this really true?
Not exactly. Although Great News Town is fiction, the story was inspired by a series of murders that happened in 1983 in Will County, Illinois. For more details -- spoiler alert -- go to this web page.
Chapter 113
Becky
leaned against the fence, watching as a trio of corn pickers sucked in the
brittle brown stalks and spewed golden grain into the open trucks behind. Like
an army of bright green tanks, they devoured everything in their path, mowing
down Mark Conley’s vast fields in a matter of hours.
The
October ritual had been played out in these fields every year for more than a
century, but it was the first harvest for Becky. She was amazed at the speed
with which the fruit of the fields was neatly condensed into trucks. The
Conleys weren’t even here to enjoy it.
Three
months had passed since Natalie Conley was wounded during the summer’s murder
spree, but she still was unable to cope with reality. Her paranoia and
depression had become so severe that she had attempted suicide twice. Shirley
had moved with her daughter to a friend’s beach house in South Carolina, hoping
the total change of scenery—and a mental health expert in Charleston—would heal
her unseen wounds.
Neighboring
farmers had offered to take care of the harvest so Mark could join his wife and
daughter. Becky was here to chronicle
this act of charity for a Sunday story in the Jordan Daily News.
She had finished her interviews with Delbert
Thompson and the other farmers who were helping. Mack had taken his photos and
left, but Becky remained, trying to absorb the rhythm and grandeur of the whole
operation.
Watching
the transformation of the cornfield made her think of an old joke about not
being able to tell a secret in a field because the corn has ears. Oh, the
secrets and sadness this corn had heard! Last spring, when Mark planted it, he
couldn’t have imagined the death, fear, and ultimate unity that a “Cornfield
Killer” could create.
Malcolm
Jones still was making headlines in the Daily News. Just the day before,
his attorney’s petition for a change of venue was resolved and a court date had
been set for early December in Peoria, one hundred miles to the southwest.
Already jokes had started about “playing Peoria,” though Becky doubted the
trial could move to any city in the state that hadn’t heard of the Cornfield
Killer.
The
summer’s events had left a mark on the Daily News as well. Josie had
taken a month off after her ordeal in the ceramic shop. She and Kevin had spent
two weeks at a cottage in the Ozarks simply treasuring life. The experience had
transformed Josie into a tiger, with a strength and determination she’d never
had before.
Becky
smiled, thinking of the day Josie had burst into the office, a full week before
her leave was scheduled to end, and marched into Ham’s office to demand that
Nick be made her assistant to allow her more time at home with her son. She’d
also demanded that Hoss be named news editor. Hammond argued that Hoss’s
failure to follow basic rules made him unfit for management. Josie countered,
loud enough for the whole newsroom to overhear, that the rules about not eating
or drinking in the newsroom were stupid and punitive and had been broken by
virtually everyone. She pointed out that even Hammond had a roll of Life Savers
in his desk drawer.
She
offered a compromise: No eating at desks during regular business hours but no
prohibition against snacking at the desk after hours. That brought the rules
into compliance with practice, and was something even Hoss could accept. Of course, there was the little matter of
smoking in the newsroom, and Josie assured Hammond that rule would not be
broken by Hoss or any of the late-night sportswriters. Then, somehow, she
convinced Hoss that his new title and hefty pay increase were worth his
compliance.
The
air had seemed fresher in the newsroom in the last month or so, and the
reporters had a pool on how long it would be before the determined Josie
convinced Hoss to give up the vile habit altogether.
After
all, she had convinced Duke to enter a dry-out clinic for six weeks, at the
newspaper’s expense. Though Sharon and
Jennifer had not moved back into the house officially, the family was together
every weekend. Duke had been out of treatment for less than a month and seemed
strong in his sobriety so far, writing more poignantly than ever.
Yes,
so much had happened since this corn was planted. “Do that many changes happen
every season?” Becky wondered. These events had been more dramatic perhaps, and
closer to home, but as Becky watched the last corn picker finish the last row,
she thought how change is all around us all the time. Some of it makes it into
the newspaper, some of it doesn’t, and the events that never make print are
sometimes the most significant.
Becky
weighed these thoughts as she pulled out of the Conley driveway and headed down
the gravel road to Old Ben’s. He would have some wise words to share. Becky had
visited with Old Ben regularly during the past few months, hungering for the
rural simplicity that she never had known and feeling an acceptance there she
never had expected.
Becky
could see him in the porch rocker as she pulled up, but he didn’t rise to greet
her or wave as he usually did. He must be asleep.
“Hey, Ben,” she called as she came up the
walk. She bounded up the two steps onto the porch, expecting the creak of the
old step to awaken him with a start. When he didn’t jump, her smile melted into
concern.
“Ben?” Becky said tentatively, then reached
out her hand and gently shook his shoulder.
“Ben!” she said louder and touched his cheek. The cool stiffness of his
body made her jump back.
“Oh, no! Ben! Ben! Can you hear me?” When
there was no response, Becky ran into the house and quickly dialed the Thompson
place. She knew it was too late for an ambulance, but she had to do something.
Grandpa Thompson said he would be right there, but Becky still was shaking as
she went to the kitchen sink and filled a glass of water from the tap. The well
water had a strong metallic taste, but Becky noticed only the coolness that
seemed to ease the burning in her chest.
She
walked back to the porch and sat down in the rocker next to Ben. The
contentment on his face conveyed a calmness that made her smile.
“Oh, Ben, how lucky you are,” she said aloud.
“You’ve never been to college or around the world, but you learned all about
life watching corn grow. Watching sunsets and rainstorms, tilling the soil,
planting seeds, harvesting grain. I wish I had half your wisdom, half your
faith!”
Becky
was silent for a few minutes, the porch creaking as she rocked. She could
almost hear Ben’s reassuring chuckle.
“Time” he would say. She would have her wisdom
and faith in time. She smiled again, tears seeming out of place. Ben’s passing
was an occasion for celebration. His season had ended, his harvest had come.
A “V”
formation of geese passed overhead honking loudly, but to Becky it seemed like
a chorus of angels trumpeting a soul’s arrival in heaven. She felt at peace,
rocking and watching the cloud of dust from Grandpa Thompson’s car wending ever
closer on the old dirt road.
Yes, it's really over. But there are two more Jordan Daily News mysteries waiting for you to discover. Go to suemerrellbooks.com
One ends, another begins
As the Serial Killer Serial concludes, another Jordan Daily News adventure begins. Full Moon Friday will officially be released on June 13, -- a full moon Friday the 13th. Josie, Duke and all the staff of the Jordan Daily News are back solving more mysteries -- a school bus disappears, a body lands at Duke's feet and there's a shootout at a crowded movie theater. It will all be solved before Full Moon Friday ends. Kindle fans can download a free copy on June 13.
Chapter 112
“What bar?” the detective repeated to Eddie
Simms.
“I don’t want to get them in trouble,” Eddie
said.
“You’re already in a hell of a lot of
trouble.” The detective grabbed Eddie’s shirt and pulled his face across the
table until the two were nose to nose. “It’s your truck. Your beer, your house.
If the guns are where you say they are, what’s to say you didn’t do all these
murders?”
“Eddie?”
Mae called from the side door.
“Listen,
if I thought I could make this all go away, I would confess.” Eddie pulled free
of the detective’s grip and rose to his feet. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of
doing that very thing. I would go to jail in a heartbeat if that would mean Mae
could have her son back. But you and I know that won’t stop this killing.”
Eddie
turned his back on the picnic table, looked at Mae standing at the door, and
turned back to the deputies.
“Joe’s. Joe’s Tap Room. On the corner of
Second Street and South River Avenue.
Let me call someone to stay with Mae and I’ll go with you. If he’s
there, maybe he’ll come to me without any trouble.”
The
sheriff’s department radioed the city for backup. But two squads were en route to a burglary in
progress at Su Le Ceramics, two doors down from Joe’s Tap Room. The call had come in when a broken window
activated the burglar alarm system.
The
city police pulled up in front of the ceramic shop, and one officer caught a
glimpse of a man inside with a possible hostage. Soon, sheriff’s deputies
arrived, and the block was surrounded. A couple of officers tried to sneak in
the back door, but shots rang out and caught one officer in the shoulder, the
second in the knee. The injured policemen retreated, and everyone ran for
cover. The officers reported seeing a body at the bottom of the stairs.
“Let me talk to him,” Eddie said. “Maybe he’ll
listen to me.”
In a
matter of minutes, Chief Miller handed a bullhorn to Eddie.
“Biggun, son. It’s me, Eddie.”
“I’m not your son,” came the thunderous reply
from inside the building. “Did you turn me in?”
“They came to the house, boy. Frightened Mae.
She needs you to come home now.”
There
was a brief silence and then a voice that sounded like a young boy called,
“Mama?”
“I’m
not going nowhere until those pigs leave,” interrupted Malcolm’s deep, gruff
voice.
“Jones,
put down your gun, and come out with your hands up,” Miller said, grabbing the
bullhorn.
“Is Mama here?” the boy’s voice called again.
“Biggun, you know how Mae hates it when you
make a mess,” Eddie called, taking the horn back. “Come out, and we’ll get the
mess all cleaned up before she gets here.”
“You’re just another pig!” came the gruff
reply. “Get those cops out of here or I’m gonna to kill this bitch.”
Miller
grabbed the horn. “Jones, how many hostages do you have?”
“Hostages?
I ain’t got no hostages, just one bitch who’s still breathing. But she
won’t be for long!”
“Okay,” Miller said. “Don’t get excited. Send
the woman out and we can talk.”
“No way, man,” Malcolm said. “She’s going with
me.”
The
officers could hear a conversation inside the building, and then a woman’s
scream.
“Send the woman out,” Miller repeated into the
bullhorn. “We have to see that she’s okay.”
There
was no reply. After a few silent minutes the officers could see movement in the
doorway, a bloodied face emerging, and behind her, a giant, dark shadow.
“OK,”
Malcolm said as he stopped Josie in the doorway, holding her by one hand
twisted behind her back and pressing a gun to her head. One of her eyes was
wide with fear, the other was swollen shut. She whimpered softly.
“Here’s
your woman. We’re going to get in that car over there and drive away as soon as
all you pigs get back in the pig pen.”
From
one of the purses, Malcolm had selected keys with a Cadillac logo and headed
toward Barb’s large yellow Caddy parked in the lot behind the ceramic shop.
“We can negotiate,” Miller shouted.
Malcolm
cut him off. “Tell your officers to disappear. If I see one pig, she gets it in
the head.”
Miller
turned to the squads that ringed the parking lot and waved for them to leave.
The officers got into their cars and slowly pulled away. Becky climbed into
Page’s brown van, and they backed slowly down the alley.
Holding Josie like a shield
across his chest, Malcolm backed toward the Caddy.
“Get out of here,” Malcolm repeated. “And take
that pig in father’s clothing with you. He’s just another stupid cop.”
“Biggun,” Eddie said, “Your mother would not
approve—”
“Shut up! Just shut up!” Malcolm fired a round
in Eddie’s direction. Miller shoved Eddie toward the squad car, and the
remaining deputies scattered.
Malcolm pressed the hot barrel to Josie’s
temple and pulled her closer to the yellow car, as Mae came running through the
gangway between the buildings. When she saw her son holding the gun to a
woman’s head she gasped, then she pulled her shoulders back, raised her head
and spoke in a controlled, reproachful tone.
“Biggun, put that gun down before somebody
gets hurt.”
“Mama?” Malcolm said in a voice so small that
Miller opened his mouth in disbelief.
Just
then the door of the Cadillac opened with full force into Malcolm’s back,
sending him sprawling to the ground. He lost his grip on Josie, who crumpled
before the open car door. Malcolm’s pistol skittered across the pavement.
Duke
tumbled out of the car, where he had sought refuge, and threw his body over
Josie’s. He expected a shootout, when a
dozen officers lunged out of hiding, guns drawn on Malcolm. But the monster was
gone. Only a big boy remained, curled in
the fetal position and whimpering, “Mama.”
Eddie
held Mae back as she tried to run to her son.
“Don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him,” she
screamed as the officers rushed forward, cuffed Malcolm and dragged him to his
feet. Malcolm seemed deflated and limp
as the officers shoved him into a squad car.
Josie
moaned and squirmed beneath Duke’s weight.
“Are
you OK?” Duke said, pulling back and seeing Josie’s swollen face for the first
time. “Jeez, you look like, like . . . ”
“Peacock piddle,” Josie croaked in a voice he could
barely hear.
COMING JUNE 19: The killer is arrested. Jordan begins to heal. But the final chapter delivers one last surprise.
Chi-town meets Great News Town
This weekend the Windy City welcomes the return of the book that spawned this serial killer serial. Great News Town will be featured at the Printers Row Literary Festival, one of the largest book festivals in the country. The story began in the Chicago suburbs back in the 1980s with a series of murders in Joliet. From 2-6 p.m. Sunday, author Sue Merrell will be signing copies of Great News Town and One Shoe Off in a tent sponsored by the Chicago Writers Association.If you stop by, be sure to say you read about it on GNT: The Serial Killer Serial.
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