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| | The Write and Publish Fiction Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Newbie...That's Me! | Views: 670 | | Jul 05, 2007 12:36 am | | Newbie...That's Me! | # | 
LaTease Rikard | | (Hope you don't mind...I also posted this introduction in another writers' network...)
Hi My name is LaTease Rikard and I am a writer. Wow that felt like an admission to an AA meeting!
Anyhoo,I have been writing for as long as I can remember. My most memorable writing experience was when I was about 8 years old and I rewrote 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'--afro-american style. My mother knew then she had a character on her hands. I am never without pen and paper or a computer.
Since then I have graduated with a degree in Journalism, written for a newspaper of two, worked for a cable station, as well as a local radio station (currently).
In the interim I got married, had two children, divorced my drug addicted, physically abusive husband, and buried one of my children. However, God has led me to greater things, my true inner self. The loss of my son has created such a void in my life, that I have begun to fill it with words.
Sometimes the words are crime stories, erotica, or just plain rantings and ravings (as evidenced by my blogs).
In addition, I am also an accomplished, professional photographer and web designer. I am also in a committed relationship.
I enjoy music, all kinds, reading and viewing offbeat news and videos, and travel.
I look forward to sharing some of work with each of you. As a matter of fact I have two short stories I wrote this week. Let me know if you would like me to post them; I'd love to get your constructive feedback.
LaTeasePrivate Reply to LaTease Rikard | | Jul 05, 2007 7:50 am | | re: Newbie...That's Me! | # | 
On a Path to NoWhere | | Hi,
It was nice knowing you.
Wish you all the luck in the world.
I would really like to read your work: your short stories. I too write sometimes and have written one recently.
I am from India.Private Reply to On a Path to NoWhere | | Jul 05, 2007 11:06 am | | re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
LaTease Rikard | | No problem...here it is...
MURDER IN MY BACKYARD
By LaTease
©2007 LMR Publishing
“Emergency Center, where is the problem?”
“I smell something dead in here. Like a dead body or something.”
“How do you know it’s a dead body?”
“You know what, when you smell a dead body once, you know it’s a dead body. Now are you gonna send somebody to check it out or what?”
It was a horrendous odor. On a ninety degree day it was down right putrid. Somebody had killed someone, I knew it. It wasn’t an animal, it wasn’t spoiled meat, it was a human body. One that had been dead for days and the heat had caught up with the decomp. Now that I had called the police, I wasn’t worried about the body anymore; I was concerned about who put it there.
The police arrived acting nonchalant. They had heard it all before, citizen calls in a complaint, basically, ‘meet a woman to investigate strange odor.’ Yep the cops are real excited about that. The dispatcher sent an old dog and a rookie looking to make a name for himself. They looked at me like I was a mental ward escapee.
“You the one who called about the dead body smell?”
The young one looked at me with one hand on his service revolver, the other one at his side. It was obvious I was the number one suspect according to him.
“Yeah. Don’t you smell it?”
They stopped for a minute as if to siphon through the scents in the hot city air. Recognition hit their faces simultaneously as faces of disbelief turned into curious eyes. It was evident their minds had connected with the smell as they clearly identified it and categorized the undeniable odor. I just wondered what took them so long to smell it.
“Where were you when you first smelled it mam?”
Ahh, now respect. Now I was a mam.
“I was getting out of my car with my groceries. That’s my red car Honda right there.”
The dumpster was a few feet away from my car. I hated parking so close to it. Rats as big as cats often hung out around there getting their meals on and terrorizing unsuspecting and squeamish humans like myself. The officers had guns. Big ones. I don’t know what size they were, but if a bullet came out of them and found one of my body parts, tremendous damage would be done.
The senior cop hung back and aimed his pistol at the dumpster. I don’t know why, it was obvious something was dead in there and clearly unable to defend itself.
The rookie had been relegated to the task of opening Pandora’s Box. He looked in and covered his mouth to hold the vomit that forced its way up his throat and onto his crisp dark uniform. Something or someone had met a cruel end, and the rookie had just graduated from first grade.
All at once my hot, muggy, quiet when it wanted to be block had turned into a celebrity of sorts. News vans with huge antennas communicating with the sky were broadcasting live and in color. I tried to remain anonymous, but the rookie who couldn’t hold his lunch, couldn’t keep his mouth shut either. He pointed me out to a newspaper reporter. I had been made.
Inside the dumpster were various body parts. They belonged to a woman. The one who butchered her didn’t even bother to bag up her arms nor legs. Leaving them exposed for whatever happens after you dismember a human body.
The rats would be angry with me; I took away a sure feast. I watched as the crime scene people and the ME’s put each piece of her into thick, yellow plastic bags. I was numb. I was also scared. There was an eerie feeling that whoever did this was close by, watching. I wonder if they knew I had called the police, disrupting a plan obviously constructed with care. I had thought only to call the police because I hated odors. Now, I needed to plan my next step, and it didn’t involve staying in my apartment alone.
Detectives and news crews hung around for hours. What was taking them so long? By now, my story was on every major internet website, all the local news shows, and now TNN was latching on, they had sent that damn Sandy Douglas. She was like a pit bull, once she smelled blood, she didn’t let up until she found out how it was spilled, who spilled it, what time was it spilled and on and on. My life had entered the road to hell. I wonder if this is what O.J. felt like.
The detectives decided we could be better off if we went to headquarters. No problem, anywhere but here.
They loaded me into the back seat of their unmarked car (a certain mark if you lived in the ‘hood). My adventure was just beginning.
“What time did you first notice the smell Ms. Carr?”
“When I came home from the supermarket. I got out of my car and noticed something stinky.”
“Something stinky?”
“Yep. I hate odors; it was the way I was raised.”
The two detectives looked incredulously at one another, wondering if I was a nut case. Questioning continued for another hour or so. When they were done, I had a decent idea of what had happened to the woman whose body parts were left to rot in an inner city dumpster.
She was dismembered somewhere else before being laid in her final resting place. The killer used a very sharp tool to complete his task; her limbs were perfectly detached from their holding place. I wondered if she had been alive when he began sawing her apart. I had watched too many cop shows, suppose the killer was a cop? Suppose the killer was a cop?
They dropped me off at my cousin’s house. He was a former linebacker for the Detroit Lions, I felt safe in his huge sanctuary he called a house. There was so much open space there, not enough people, too many square feet. Ernie had been Defensive player of the year five years in a row, and had two Super Bowl rings. Whenever called, he gave his retired, football opinions to sports radio shows, TV shows and had just signed on to do color analysis for a regional sports television network. The dough kept rolling in for him. That’s good. Because he was such a bad ass little kid, I once thought his address after high school would be on Cooper Street in Jackson, Michigan.
Ernie put me in a room that was as large as my entire apartment. He had an alarm system that was probably connected to a satellite, and then sent electronic feeds to the NSA; nevertheless, it was truly state of the art. Yet with all these technological marvels I didn’t feel safe. Sleep would not come easy tonight.
I was tired when Ernie rang the phone in my room. He had a cook who prepared nothing but healthy, gorgeous looking food for him three times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Married once and divorced with three kids, Ernie vowed never to say ‘I Do’ again. He said the wedding was cheap, but he had to take out a second mortgage on his home, pawn some jewelry and take a part time job to get divorced. A confirmed bachelor who loves the easy ladies at the strip clubs, Ernie enjoys the freedom money and no wife gives him. The annoyance of the doorbell disturbed my thoughts. It was my friends the detectives.
“We’ve got some more questions for you. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“You don’t.”
There was always a cop looking for a TV show, guess I had met one in person.
The coroner had managed to piece the dead girl’s body back together and was able to identify her from her tramp stamp and the tattoo on her ankle. The killer was a little careless. He should have scraped it off or something. Investigators were able to trace the exquisite markings back to Inking U Tattoo shop in Warren. The artist who designed it remembered Erica (the dead girl pieced back together), because she came in with a guy with a huge diamond ring on his pinky finger. He was quiet and brooding. Erica was in a hurry and wanted the tat artist to do his thing quickly. He refused, saying she could catch an infection if he didn’t do everything properly; he had a reputation to protect.
Erica was a dancer at Wild Stallion’s, an upscale gentlemen’s club known for renting their girls to celebrities, businessmen and anybody who had enough cash for a private performance. Apparently, she had a dissatisfied customer, one who didn’t even want a refund.
Ernie was being the gracious host; offering fresh squeezed orange juice and made to order egg white omelets. The officers declined requesting a rain check as well as a dip in the Olympic sized pool just beyond the living room. These guys were smooth, questioning me just enough to get Ernie curious. Human nature is such that it wants more when knowledge is good and plentiful, basically nosey-ness takes over and Ernie couldn’t help but ask about the dismembered dead girl.
“Damn cuz, you saw something like that?”
“No, I didn’t actually see it, I just smelled it. Sort of like a bloodhound.”
“Your cousin may be in danger though. The real reason we came out here this morning was to check on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, some weirdo called 911 this morning making threats against you Ms. Carr.”
Suddenly my heart stopped and I felt my lungs scrambling for air. My fears were becoming a reality. Whoever killed Erica had seen me. The killer probably saw me when that nosy reporter began questioning me. It was hard concentrating on the words the detective chose to probe me with.
“You alright, Ms. Carr?” Ms. Carr?”
“No, I’m not! I should have minded my own business.”
“Ms. Carr, please, what you did we appreciate it. Now, it’s our turn to help you.”
“We are going to get you out of here. The killer knows where you are.”
“How?” “You have a leak in your department?” “Oh my God!”
“Get your things, we’re leaving.”
“Wait, where are you taking my cousin?”
“Sorry sir, that’s classified.”
“Let’s go Ms. Carr.”
Sitting in the back seat allowed me to develop mental pictures of yesterday. My mind scanned the gawkers for anyone who looked out of place or maybe too attentive. No one came to mind. As far as I knew, the detectives could be taking me to my final resting place; they could be delivering me to the killer right now. I couldn’t jump out the car and make a run for it because the rear doors were locked like a New York taxi cab. I was running out of people to trust.
We arrived at a dingy run down motel in Clinton Township. It wasn’t an upwardly mobile community, nor was it the ghetto either. But that wasn’t my concern. The detectives told me they were going to try to trace the call to 911, but it would take a few more hours to get results. In the meantime, Detectives Grant and Lawry were going to do 12 hour shifts babysitting me. I felt like I was in the witness protection program.
“Is a hot meal included in this deal?”
“Yeah. Sorry. We had to get you out of that house and away from your cousin.”
“Why?” “What’s gong on?”
“We think he may be involved. It seems Ernie may have been one of two people to see Erica alive before her murder.”
“Why didn’t he say anything? He acted as if he didn’t know, that it was all news to him.”
“Yeah, well, so would I. A dude he was hanging with that night at the strip club was seen leaving with Erica around 10:00. Right now, as we speak, Ernie is being questioned by a couple of other investigators on our team.”
“You don’t think Ernie had anything to do with the actual murder do you?”
“We don’t know right now. But by the end of the night we’ll know a lot more.”
Spookiness had a new name, and it was currently running through my veins. Ernie, tied up with a murder? My mind was running through unanswered questions like an obstacle course. He had acted so caring and concerned for me, had made sure I was safe, away from the bad person who had committed this heinous crime. Now, I’m being led to believe that he may have been involved? I was becoming light headed from the wildness of my thoughts. If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?
“So you used to play with the Lions, huh?”
“Yeah, I was middle linebacker for a couple of years.”
“Where did you meet the deceased?”
“I had just met her that night at the club.”
“Yeah. Is that your first time at the club?”
“I go from time to time, you know how it is man, you go to see the hoes, get a little lap dance, then you leave.”
“Is that what you did the other night?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Erica give you a lap dance?
“Not that night. No.”
“Ernie, did you know that the owner had recently installed cameras because he had just gotten robbed the week before?”
“Naw, man that ain’t cool.”
“Well, the owner was concerned for his safety as well as his well paying customers. We saw you getting a lap dance from Erica, and your boy was fondling her at the same time.” “Do y’all do that all the time, you know, double up with women?”
The silence was like a conviction. It they had video of the lap dance, and then they also saw Chad leave with Erica. It was time to fess up.
“His name is Chad. We went to State together.”
“Go on.”
“He likes to get his freak on in private, sometimes he gets a little raw dog with the girls, you know?”
“No Ernie, we don’t know. Why don’t you tell us?”
“Chad told me he took her to his place and had her give him some one on one action. He said things got out of hand after he caught Erica going through his pants pockets.”
“So what did he do next?”
“He said he smacked her around a bit.”
“Just smacking her around a bit won’t dismember her Ernie.”
“He didn’t tell me all that man, just that he smacked her and kicked her.”
“Ernie, we think you need a night in the cell so you can regain your memory.”
My cousin was a big man but he was a weenie for sure. A night in jail would reduce him to tears. Coming clean was his only option.
“Look man, he didn’t tell me nothing about cutting that girl up. He just said he hit her too hard one time and she didn’t get up.”
Ernie went on to tell the investigators what they needed to know, giving them enough information to obtain a search warrant for Chad’s house.
A plain, unmarked car pulled up to Chad’s house in the suburb of Beverly Hills, Michigan along with two squad cars for backup. Chad had company. From the looks of it a party was in full swing and it didn’t involve the police.
Armed with a search warrant the detectives marched to his massive front door. Chad was expecting more strippers to the private party he was hosting for one of his boys.
“It’s about time… what the fuck?”
“Chad Davis, we a search warrant for your premises.”
“For what man?”
“In the investigation of the death of Erica Chambers.”
“Who?”
The detectives gave Chad the warrant so he could read it. He was so snug in his activities that he had no idea the cops were onto him. Some of his guests attempted to leave, but the police wouldn’t allow anyone to leave. They were all potential witnesses and eligible to be questioned. A couple of the guys were currently playing for pro football teams and wanted to remain as low key as possible. However, low key was not an option in this case.
Chad was angry because he could hear the dismantling of his home from the basement up to the second floor. Uniformed officers were in his bedroom going through his closets full of expensive clothing and shoes. They would continue to toss things around until they found the hefty garbage bag hidden under a pile of dirty laundry. What they found would raise more than doubt in the murder of Erica Chambers.
When the police left they had enough questionable items to justify bringing Chad to the station for further questioning.
After the crime scene went through Chad’s place they had gathered hair, blood, as well as the electric saw he used to dismember Erica. DNA results would link Chad to Erica’s murder. He was also charged with corruption of a minor because the strippers were all under age. Chad had issues but he wasn’t the only one. Ernie had to deal with his demons as well. It was something about being a pro football player that was attractive yet so taboo. I guess I could go back home now; the boogie man had been caught.
Private Reply to LaTease Rikard | | Jul 05, 2007 12:48 pm | | re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
On a Path to NoWhere | | That is a wonderfully written story and is quite interesting. It has the quiality of making the reader hooked and keep him reading.
The end was though not satisfactroy, It was very plain and a bland end, I was expecting some twist or turn in the end of the story.
All in All, A very good story.Private Reply to On a Path to NoWhere | | Jul 05, 2007 9:06 pm | | re: re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
LaTease Rikard | | thank you for that...ending a story has always been my weakness...any suggestions? Private Reply to LaTease Rikard | | Jul 06, 2007 7:26 am | | re: re: re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
On a Path to NoWhere | | Hi,
I really cant think of the same story and just a different end.
Though I thought about a different concept, which could have used to written about the same story.
The basic idea is like from the movie - The Others - that sometimes when you die your soul doesnt notice the death and keeps on living as usual, like it is still alive. If you have seen the movie, you will know what I mean.
You smelled the corpse in your backyard, it disturbed you more than a stinky scent would. you saw the neighbours out.. near the dumpster, police coming.. then searchin for your home and all and they all seem to ignore you, like they cant even see you.
Then the stroy progresses, you move with the police, sittin the van.. nobody noticing you and you cant understand anything.. go to your cousins place and chad and all.. and then when your brother breaks down: he moans: I killed my sister and then you know that you have been murdered ..
that might be the twist and the punch needed at the end.
do tell me your views about this..
Take CarePrivate Reply to On a Path to NoWhere | | Jul 06, 2007 11:59 am | | re: re: re: re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
LaTease Rikard | | hmmm, that is a good twist...I like that...I will rework that ending now
Thank you...Private Reply to LaTease Rikard | | Jul 06, 2007 2:10 pm | | re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
Jenny | | Hi Latease ;)
I thought I had replied to this and was so disappointed that it didn't come through--until I realized I gave you the feedback over at the Writer's Cafe on MySpace :)
So, if you haven't seen it yet, it's over there ;)
Warmly,
Jenny:)Private Reply to Jenny | | Jul 09, 2007 7:02 am | | re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Newbie...That's Me! | # |
On a Path to NoWhere | | Hi,
Nice to hear that you liked it.
You are welcome.Private Reply to On a Path to NoWhere | | |
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