Mrs. McCory wants to meet me at a motel. It’s not what I think it is. It never is.
My fellow Writers Write! member is working on a murder mystery, and she needs some local color. The Sunset Inn is just down the street from the library. It’s a sleazy place, and she’s scared to go by herself.
“Why don’t you bring your husband?” I ask.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
This is rather cryptic, but I leave it alone. “When do you want to go?”
“Now.”
Our group is filing out. It’s 8pm. Mrs. McCory carries a backpack and tote. Once we hit the street she slings the pack, which is curiously heavy, over my shoulder. What the group thinks of two married people, virtually in each other’s arms, tottering off to the wicked part of town is hard to say.
“Oof!” she says, ten minutes later, dropping onto a park bench. She’s a big gal, sorta big all over, attractive and none too athletic. The Sunset is across the street.
I join her, sitting close enough to catch her scent, which I would describe as “exhausted blonde”. Soon she’s recovered, and fidgety.
“Do you have a cigarette?” she asks.
“Do you smoke?”
“No.”
Neither do I. I find a pack of spearmint Extra and hand her a stick. She chews rapidly and eyes the motel. “There!” she says.
“Where?”
She takes a pair of old-fashioned, heavy black binoculars from the backpack and dials in. A cargo van has pulled into the parking lot and five or six men emerge. “Those are killers,” she says.
“Those guys?”
”Yes! Assassins.”
They do look suspicious. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
“No, it’s just getting good.” Now she has a camera out, one of those telephoto jobs you imagine private detectives use. Or birders. “See that woman?”
“What woman?”
“That one.” Someone is pulling a suitcase up stairs, clunking along step by step. “It’s a murderer.”
The light’s not good, but to me it looks like a small business owner, with samples. “What’s in the suitcase?”
“Don’t ask.”
My writing partner has written a half dozen novels. In each, a man dies a gruesome death at the hands of a woman. It’s okay, she tells the group. They have it coming. Mrs. McCory lives in a big house in the suburbs. Her husband makes a lot of money. By day she sees beautiful homes, happy people. By night she sees something different.
Now she has her lipstick out, and holding a compact paints her lips a sloppy, garish red. I ask what’s up.
“We’re going in. Put this on.” She pulls out a fedora. Actually, it’s a hipster straw hat with a band and small red feather. “Come on.” She takes my arm, holding me close as we approach the Sunset Inn. The street reflects the garish orange sign. We’re both stimulated, in different ways.
At the edge of the parking lot she chickens out, but sends me on, to confirm her suspicions. An old man sits on a chair beside the cargo van. He is very old, with a wrinkled face that lights up at my approach. “Nogshong!” he calls to me, saluting. The hotel door is open and men are watching TV. A couple of them have already gone to bed. The van reads ‘Des Moines Plumbing’.
Nogshong I answer back, keeping my voice down. Men have to work in the morning. I wander away.
“Are they assassins?” Mrs. McCory asks.
Sure. Tomorrow they’re going to assassinate some pipes. I don’t tell her this. Instead we walk in nervous silence back to the library, and our cars. She can’t wait to get home, the next chapter is writing itself. As a reward for all of this, she gives me a big, sloppy kiss on the side of the mouth.
I did learn something that night. I think it might help my fiction, and it might help yours. Observation is great. But observation without imagination is worthless. Or at least, less interesting.
As I drove home I remembered to wipe off Mrs McCory’s lipstick. The stuff is greasy, and hard to remove. But remove it I did. My wife was waiting for me, and some people have very little imagination. Or far too much.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com