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Wishful Thinking

Georgette Finch turned on the bathroom faucet in anticipation of a long, relaxing, hot bubble bath. It had been a tiring day, and her pale, haggard reflection in the vanity mirror bore witness to her exhaustion. Still, she did not think she looked too bad for a woman who had just murdered her husband. That was nothing new for her. She had already murdered him six times during the past five years.

When Georgette Lewis, a fifth-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School, met Nicholas Finch, the path she had previously chosen for her life took a sharp turn. Out went her dreams of furthering her education and earning her doctorate, becoming a dedicated historian and writing bestselling books about history's most influential and fascinating people and world-shaping events. One look at Nick, the handsome and sophisticated young assistant district attorney, and her thoughts went from those of a dedicated scholar to those of an enamored schoolgirl. Georgette found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the French Revolution, the British monarchy, the Magna Carta and American manifest destiny when her mind was filled with adolescent-like dreams of love and romance.

Consequently, when her first book was published, it was not a carefully researched biography of Alexander Hamilton or a blow-by-blow account of the Battle of Bull Run. Instead, it was a paperback romance about a beautiful, fiery-tempered southern belle and a charismatic Yankee officer. Georgette's early books—all of them fictional romances with a historical setting—reflected her mood during those first blissful years of her marriage. The hero of each one, whether a pirate, a crusading knight, an American patriot or an Egyptian pharaoh, was as dashing and handsome as her husband. While writing each book, in her imagination, Georgette always cast herself as the heroine and Nick as the heroine's one true love. Despite various hardships, wars, plagues and the inevitable separation, love always prevailed, and the two main characters were reunited in the final chapter, blessed by fate to live happily ever after.

At least such was the case in her books—not so in the real world. Georgette's handsome and charming husband eventually lost his luster. Their romance came to an end, and their love died a slow and painful death. Yet the marriage continued for the sake of their children. However, the strain of living with a man whose temper was like an active volcano likely to erupt at any time took its toll on Georgette.

It was shortly after the first time Nick struck her that Georgette first killed him off in Death Watch, the writer's first murder mystery. Unlike her romances, the who-done-its were well received by the critics. And not only did most of her former fans continue buying her books, but she also gained quite a few new devotees of the mystery genre.

From that point on, there was no turning back. Georgette stuck to writing mysteries since she no longer had the inclination to write romances about starry-eyed virgins. Nick continued to play a major role in the creation of her plots. He was still the model for her primary male characters—only he was no longer the daring, romantic swashbuckler but a victim of a carefully devised murder plot. Furthermore, he was presented as the kind of victim who gets very little sympathy from the readers, who usually believed the good-looking ne'er-do-well had gotten what he deserved. Those six books were not only financially rewarding, but they also served as a cathartic balm to help the author get through the aftermath of a dying marriage.

* * *

It was while Georgette was working on the rough draft of her seventh mystery that she agreed to an interview with a reporter from The Madison Chronicle. Ms. Irene Dylan, the young journalist, started by asking all the usual questions, and then midway through the interview, she changed focus.

"What I'd really like to know, Mrs. Finch," Irene said in a confidential tone, "is your opinion of these actual murder cases."

The reporter handed Georgette a folder of clippings from various newspapers across the country. The author briefly glanced at the articles and then stared uncertainly at the young journalist.

"I don't understand, Ms. Dylan. What do you want my opinion on? Who the killers might be? Whether or not the murders might be connected in some way?"

"Oh, I know that these crimes are all connected," Irene asserted with complete assurance. "Please read the names of the victims and how they were murdered. No, wait. Don't bother. I'll save you time. In this case," she said pointing to the first of the articles, "a lawyer named Claude Cameron was bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. In this one, a physician by the name of Ralph Horton was shot between the eyes with a .44 Magnum. Here, Professor Stanley Wilkes died of arsenic poisoning. In this next one, Police Captain Mario Petrillo was pushed to his death from a ninth-story window. And here, multimillionaire Albert Sherman was stabbed in the chest and abdomen a total of nineteen times. Finally, professional athlete Barry McLean was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver."

Georgette was all too familiar with those names. They had all been given to characters in her books. More specifically, they were the names of the murdered victims. But an even greater coincidence was the fact that the men's professions and the manners of death in each case were the same as in her novels as well.

"Do you think someone has been reading my books and then going out and murdering men with the same names and in the same manner?" Georgette asked the reporter. "I suppose that's possible, but to match their occupations as well? That must have been damned hard!"

"No, that's not what I think," Irene replied. "I did a little additional research into these murders. In each case, the deaths occurred shortly after the books were written but before they appeared in print. So, if it were simply a case of copying the murders in your novels, the killer or killers would have to have seen your original manuscripts before they were released to the public. The mastermind of these crimes could be someone who works for your publisher: an editor, a proofreader, a typesetter, a secretary, or even a person who works in the mail room, for that matter."

"But you don't think that's the case, do you?"

Irene shrugged her shoulders and asked, "Where do you get the ideas for your books, Mrs. Finch?"

"They just come to me. I'll be driving down the highway, listening to the radio, and an idea will pop into my head. Or I'll be daydreaming while I'm doing the housework, and I suddenly see bits and pieces of a scenario."

"Do you want to know what I think? I think you might be getting psychic impressions of these crimes before they're being committed, probably while they're being planned."

"In your opinion then it's just one person murdering these men, right? And you think that I'm on the killer's wavelength."

"I admit I don't know much about this psychic stuff, but perhaps when some people have great hatred and the potential for violence buried deep inside them, they may emit energy of some kind. Other individuals might be sensitive to that. My guess is that the killer is emitting such energy and you are tapping into it."

"Ms. Dylan, may I ask how you came across all this information in the first place?" the writer asked, holding up the file folder.

"Well," Irene admitted with a sheepish smile, "I must confess, I'm a big fan of yours. I've read all your books: both the romances and the mysteries. You're one of my favorite authors."

Georgette duly nodded graciously at the compliment.

"I guess every reporter thinks he or she can write a book," Ms. Dylan continued, "and I'm no different. Of course, I wouldn't try to write a novel. I don't think I have the vivid imagination that it requires to write good fiction. No, I want to write true crime stories similar to the ones Ann Rule writes. Have you ever read any of her works?"

"Yes, I have, several in fact. I particularly liked Small Sacrifices."

"I figured that if I wanted to write a book that would get published, I would first need to find a really interesting murder, one with a rather bizarre or sensational aspect to it. I was looking through clippings of homicide cases when I came across the name Barry McLean. I immediately recognized it because it was from your latest book. I had just finished reading it, and the characters were still fresh in my mind. And when I saw Mario Petrillo's name, I recognized that one, too. One or two matches may have been mere coincidence, but when I found the third, I decided there must be a connection. I immediately went home and made a list of the names of the victims in your books. And, as you can see, they were all there."

"Did your investigations turn up anything else?"

"Yes, they did. None of these murders has been solved yet. The police departments involved don't even have any likely suspects. In all of the cases, there were no witnesses and what one detective referred to as 'a disturbing lack of physical evidence.' There were no fingerprints or footprints, no hair or tissue samples and no fibers; the forensic teams came up with nothing."

"What about the murder weapons?"

"In the Cameron case, no blunt instrument was found, nor was the gun that shot Ralph Horton or the knife used to stab Albert Sherman. In the other cases, there were no traditional weapons."

"You really did your homework, didn't you, Ms. Dylan?" the author asked with a forced smile. "I can only assume you found the subject of your book then."

The reporter nodded.

"But all you have here are questions and no answers," Georgette pointed out. "What kind of a book do you think that would make?"

"The Jack the Ripper murders were never solved, and even now, more than a hundred years later, people are still writing books, articles and movies about him. The same is true of Lizzie Borden. The jury found her not guilty, but people are still asking: did she really do it? Books about unsolved murders are more numerous than you think. JonBenet Ramsey, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Black Dahlia. And no one knows the identity of Zodiac. Perhaps it's the crimes without answers that intrigue people most."

After considering the journalist's comments, Georgette had to agree with her.

"I guess your theory about my psychic knowledge of all these murders will be addressed in your book," she said.

"Most certainly. Your novels are the only common denominator in these cases. I'll have to mention you and your work in order to connect them."

"I'd like to see this puzzle solved myself, so if I can be of any assistance, please don't hesitate to call me. Maybe we can find at least one or two answers to some of those questions of yours."

"Thank you. I was hoping you'd offer to help. Who knows? Maybe we can discover the identity of the killer and solve all these murders! That would be a feather in both our caps."

After the reporter left, Georgette sat at her desk pondering the mysterious series of what appeared on the surface to be copycat murders. Was there a psychic connection? She doubted it. She had deliberately neglected to mention to Ms. Dylan her true motives for writing her mysteries. She lacked the courage to dispose of Nick in reality, so she vicariously killed him in her books.

Georgette knew that Irene Dylan had been right about one thing: hatred and violent intentions did seem to emit an energy of some kind. Once she had seen the clippings and heard the facts surrounding the actual murders, she came to the painful realization that she was the one responsible for the deaths of those six men. Somehow, the anger she had been trying to exorcise within herself was unleashed, and the consequences were deadly.

She supposed she should feel guilty about the deaths she unwittingly caused, but she didn't. The six men weren't figments of her imagination. She had read an article on domestic violence published in a criminal psychology magazine. The six names had all been selected from that article. Those men were repeat offenders of spousal abuse, men who had viscously beaten the same women they had vowed to cherish and protect. Their victims had all been too frightened, too small in size or too weak to fight back. As far as Georgette was concerned, she had done the world a favor in ridding it of such bullies.

Her lack of guilt notwithstanding, now that she had accurately guessed the awful truth about her deadly talent, she would have to give up writing murder mysteries. Maybe it was time to go back to her first love: history.

She was still sitting at her desk considering her career alternatives when Nick came home from the office. He had not been in the house more than five minutes when he started screaming at the kids for leaving their bikes in the driveway. That was one of the many things his wife had come to hate about him: his constant yelling. Often she had wished he would be struck down by either a heart attack or a stroke while in the midst of one of his tirades. But no such luck; that had just been wishful thinking.

* * *

Husband and wife ate dinner alone. The children had already eaten and were in the family room watching television and doing their homework. As she ate, Georgette looked through the day's mail: the phone bill, two banks offering Visa gold cards, a sales circular and a letter from Freemont College, her alma mater, inviting her to lecture on writing. She showed the letter to Nick, who seemed less than enthused about the invitation.

"I think I'll go, and while I'm there, I'll spend some time with a few old friends of mine that I haven't seen since graduation. Why don't we both get away for a while," she asked with a feeling of mounting excitement.

"Why the hell would I want to go to Freemont to hear you lecture or to see a bunch of your old girlfriends?"

"I didn't mean for you to come with me. Look, my mother won't mind watching the kids for a week while I go up to Freemont. Why don't you take some time off and visit your brother?"

Nick pondered her suggestion for a few moments.

"Yeah, you know that's not a bad idea. I haven't seen Rob for some time. I might even stop at Lake Tranquility on the way back and try out my new rod and reel. It would be great to spend a whole day out on the lake with no cell phone or beeper to interrupt the peace and quiet."

* * *

Six weeks later, Georgette Finch checked into the Pine Crest Motel in Freemont and quickly let herself into her suite. The race was on. Out came her laptop computer. After booting up Windows, she opened Microsoft Word and began to type at a furious pace. She had only one week to write an entire book from start to finish, a book which was to be her final who-done-it. And in that week, Georgette also had to fit in time for the lecture at the college and a visit with her old friends.

She worked faster than she had ever worked in her life, completely unconcerned with style, grammar or sentence structure. There was no detailed mise en scène, no description of the setting. After all, this book would never be seen by an editor, never be published and never be read by another living soul.

Least of all, that ambitious reporter, Irene Dylan, Georgette thought.

By the end of the week, the author was exhausted, but it had been well worth the hard work. The students at Freemont College greatly enjoyed her lecture. Her old friends, Beverly, Gina and Audrey, met her for lunch at the Captain's Galley where the four of them spent several delightful hours catching up on the past few years. But most importantly, with superhuman effort on her part, the book was finished.

In a way, Georgette regretted that no one would ever read it. The plot was a simple yet unusual one. It told the story of a man, on vacation from his wife and children, who goes to a secluded lake to do some fishing. Unfortunately, the man does not realize that there is a plot to kill him. While he is fishing, the rowboat he is sitting in overturns for no apparent reason. While the boat is capsizing, one of the oars violently strikes him on the head. The unconscious man slips beneath the water's surface and drowns.

Meanwhile, nine hundred miles away, his murderer sat in a motel room, holding the murder weapon on her lap, furiously hitting its keys and pounding out her story, repeating the character's name and occupation several times in each chapter: Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Finch. Only in that way could Georgette be sure that her wishful thinking became a reality.


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"... Morris the Cat died, and Salem was named spokescat for Friskies. Morris the Cat died ...."


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