This Month's Featured Stories...

Cigarettes   by Theresa Kinkaide  Don't play with someone's affections.  Seriously.  It can be very unhealthy, just like smoking.  And sometimes, it can kill you much more quickly.

The funny thing is I want a cigarette, and I don’t smoke.

I thought about this for a long time. I acted this out so many times in my head, always changing little details. I wanted to see you lying here beside me, your skin the color of death. I’ve never done this before, but as I sit here in the aftermath and remember the way it felt to watch you take your last breath, I know I’ve done the right thing.

 

The Gil Hodges Trading Card   by William Wilde   I never was a little, scrawny kid, but I do remember being picked on by bigger, older kids.  There are times when, if I'd been able to just wish them dead, they'd have curled up and died.  But adults have more control over that sort of thing than children, right?  Right??

It was pure accident when I ran into Kenny Burwell that day in the sports memorabilia shop. I should know, because I get paid a lot of money to arrange accidents, the kind that the police never detect later. This time with Kenny, it really was an accident, trust me.

I was back in Portland between business assignments, killing time one afternoon in the plastic fern lined galleries of the Washington Square Mall. I had wandered into a shop called Stats that specialized in upscale sports collectibles. Autographed balls and jerseys and rare trading cards hanging in glass frames on the walls, that sort of thing.

Hero Cop  by Libby Cudmore.   What is the secret of being a hero?  A total lack of fear?  The ability to face fear and back it down?  Or maybe, just maybe... is it being in the right place at the right time, even if it's for the wrong reason? 

Huh. Bastards. Idiots, all of them. I shouldn’t complain, I’m the hero. I don’t contest it. It’s all parades and medals and a big fat raise, a reward for my bravado. Broads line up to sit in my lap. Bartenders pour from top-shelf bottles on the house tab. And they should—it was booze and blow that saved that little brat.

The night is hazy in the back of my mind, lit with only snatches of clarity: the first taste of bourbon and ice on my teeth, the creak of the jukebox until the junk ex-boxer who always hangs around Mickey’s put his fist through the glass, the tap on my shoulder that told me Lucas was ready for business. We were almost finished with our back-alley shopping trip when the first shot was fired, and Lucas took off over the chain-link like the milquetoast that he is, spilling my hundred bucks’ buy of powder all over the cement.

 

I was just seventeen the first time I visited Lorna's Castle, radio commentator Louis Labrador's memorial to his late wife. Alas poor Lorna—former Atlanta heiress, former child star, currently dead.

The year was 1938, and Lorna rose majestically from the fog on California 's Central Coast , a faux antebellum mansion, the place to go for a wicked weekend party. The Hollywood elite might not agree with Louis Labrador’s right wing politics, but they loved his free food and wine. 

So how did I wangle an invitation? Simple. I had connections. My grandfather was character actor Josef von Strasser. He said he wanted to unwind after the wrap of his latest film,  and wouldn't it be fun to see movie stars at play?

When In Rome   by Sandra Seamans   Adaptation is how species survive.  If it gets colder, only the ones with fur and fat layers survive.  Too much water, they learn to swim.  It's an ancient adage: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  

Sheriff Cody Williams sighed as he pulled into Asa Hardy's driveway. He knew Asa's panicked 911 call was just another wild goose chase. But that's what the county paid him for, chasing geese when the need arose. Just last week Asa had called claiming ninjas were killing his chickens. But tonight? Asa's imagination had really jumped the track. He had aliens pilfering his grapes.

Turning off his headlights, Cody saw a soft glow coming from Asa's back yard. Walking around the house he found Asa standing in front of his barbeque pit roasting ears of corn and charring up some hot dogs and burgers. His backyard was overflowing with an assorted variety of alien men and women slurping back beer and pitching horse shoes.

 

Private Eyes and Ears  by Clair Dickson.   I read once of a Benedictine abbot who told his charges, "God has given you two ears and one mouth, proving there is twice as much work for one as there is for the other."  Being a good listener is imperative to being a good private investigator.

No Motive for Murder Episode 4   by Gary R. Hoffman.   We come to the surprise conclusion of this weird tale of haunted computers and intrigue! 

During the rest of their conversation, Jason told Detective Ridgeway what he knew of Quinton Fridley. Jason also found out that the woman who sold Regan the computer and television was named Margaret Sullivan and apparently had no connection to any of this except that she had rented a room to someone who said they were Alex Granby. Ridgeway also told Jason there were no prints found in the house on anything that had been trashed and that no hospitals or doctors in the area had reported treating someone who might have been cut up with a broken bottle. They were running DNA tests on the blood found in the alley to see if it matched anyone in their database.

Regan rode to work with Jason in his car. She was to the point where she didn’t want to be alone, even for a short time. Jason had one small job waiting for him, but nothing immediately after that. He put in a call to Stanford. After being transferred many more times than he wanted to be, he got to talk to a Doctor Paul Hartwig. “So were you at Stanford while Alex Granby was there?”

 

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