Rejection: Publishing Murder Mystery (Lou Drake Mysteries) by Thomas K. Matthews Read Free Book Online Page A

little she had read. And she knew there was plenty more to read. After all, part of her job was to convert all the old case files to digital. She had many boxes still to push through down in the storeroom, and the Hennings files were among them. Serena made up her mind to spend some time poking around in that particular shallow grave. She had no idea if anything in those files would be any use to her new cage buddy, but it didn’t hurt to try.
    As for today, she knew just what would cheer him up. She closed the personnel files and accessed the case files for the current murders. Much of the evidence would still be in the Detective’s paper files upstairs, but she figured some of the case notes would already be online. Serena grinned to herself when she found eight pages. She hit the print button and waited for the laser printer to spit them out. She slipped the pages into a case folder and returned to the cage.
    Drake was tapping slowly at his keyboard. Serena walked over and stood beside him, the file folder tucked under her arm. He looked up at her. “What’s up?”
    She held the folder out to him. Her voice was low when she spoke. “Thought you might want to look at these.”
    Drake’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. He opened the folder, glanced inside and then quickly shut it.
    “Where did you get these?” he hissed.
    Serena shrugged nonchalantly. “What can I say, I got access.”
    “What kind of access?”
    She smiled. “Enough to show you what’s up around here, if you want.”
    “I appreciate what I think you’re saying but I don’t want to get you into any trouble, and I’m in enough already.”
    “Nothing you can do will get me in any trouble. And you, what’re they gonna do, fire you?”
    “Yes, and take away my pension.”
    “Never gonna happen, doughnut man.”
    Drake peeked at the freshly printed pages again.
    “You get these off the computer?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So anyone could look up what files you’ve been accessing.”
    Serena gave him a patronizing look. “Drake, you worry too damn much. I look at case files all the time, it’s part of my job. Now why don’t you find a quiet corner and read those over.”
    Drake hesitated but Serena seemed so earnest that he pulled out the pages and folded them so they fit in his pocket. A few minutes later he was alone in the restroom. He locked himself in a stall and quickly scanned the pages. The first few provided personal information on Petre and Orland. After that came notes summarizing the investigation to date. He folded the papers and jammed them back in his pocket. He would look at them more closely when he got home.
    Drake felt a welcome tightening in his chest as he walked back to the cage. This was the same type of excitement he used to get whenever he had a new case to investigate. Only this time he wasn’t on the hook to solve anything. He had in mind a very different kind of project; these two murders would provide wonderful ideas for a new book. For the first time in weeks a genuine smile spread across his face.

C HAPTER E IGHT

    THE KILLER TAPPED furiously on the computer keyword, filling up pages with material the likes of which had never been undertaken. When the idea for this book had first bloomed in his mind, the thought had been to find an antique Royal manual typewriter and laboriously pound the clacking teeth. That image seemed to fit the killer’s vision of a nostalgic fantasy driven by some morose symbolism. But such a typewriter would be traceable. The experts could identify the make and model and the project would take on the cliché machination of a bad detective novel.
    That would never do, for this book was to be a grand opus, a literary triumph that no publisher could ignore. The killer scorned the crazies who sent taunting letters to the police. Their idiotic words would be published in newspapers, but what kind of accomplishment was that? No, this project was not a childish attempt to get attention. The goal