Day 697: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: mystery books

Mrs. Margie Bell had decided to take the advice of her cousin Mrs. Magdalena Thornton – now that the divorce was winding down and Brett Bell was going to be behind bars for a long, long time, it was time for Mrs. Bell to get back to doing some of the things she loved.

While living with her cousin Mrs. Thornton, she gingerly began to venture out more and more – first to Mrs. Thornton's church, Church in the Midst of Life, which had a ministry daily for battered women. Mrs. Bell was quite bitter against God at first, but, the people were kind and loving and helpful and supportive, and she had sort of formed the habit of going to the church in the afternoons. It didn't hurt that Cousin Maggie gave up her lunch break three times a week to bring home-cooked food to the women there and fellowship with them. This meant a lot to Cousin Margie.

Cousin Margie had gingerly ventured out further, and had been delighted to find a book sale going on at a local library. Tons of her favorite kinds of books at a cheap price – yes!

Cousin Maggie found her Cousin Margie plopped down in the patio of the Rosewood Apartments in the middle of a pile of mystery books.

“Maggie, you should really start getting into these – these mystery books are GREAT. Got a classic here by J.B. Fletcher – these would really help you on your job!”

“Thanks, Margie,” said Cousin Maggie, calling on all the power of God to keep from saying something unkind. “I appreciate you thinking of me like that.”

“I'm telling you, there are ideas in here that would make your day fly by, having you solving all sorts of cases – who's the best detective in the place? I bet you could draw even if you read up all of these really good ones!”

“Maybe,” Cousin Maggie said, “but, since I'm just the secretary to the commissioner, I think I should do my job and let the detectives do theirs.”

“Oh, you've got to have more ambition about yourself – wait a minute, here comes someone who should know – good evening, neighbor, Captain Lee!”

Cousin Maggie refrained from putting her head in her hands.

Captain H.F. Lee, commander of cold case division of police in Big Loft, VA, came right over.

“Good evening, Mrs. Bell, and hello again, Mrs. Thornton – how do y'all do?”

Cousin Margie was just tickled and Cousin Maggie wanted to hide under a rock.

“I was just telling Maggie – isn't there value in studying great thinkers on the subject of solving mysteries in y'all's line of work?”

“I see the works of Agatha Christie and J.B. Fletcher there – those are excellent for people outside the field to read.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ma'am, when your life might well feature in a mystery book someday, the last thing you want is to come home and read what people who aren't in law enforcement think about it,” Captain Lee said, with a sweet smile but very firm voice. “The personality-driven misconceptions such writers put forth about what detective work is and how it should be done can in fact be very harmful to a proper understanding – although I would say that Conan Doyle is generally quite good, Christie was good with Inspector Battle, and J.B. Fletcher for the late 20th century, with her focus on the importance of small pieces of evidence, perhaps the best. At least those three are not harmful to the general public and resulting jury pools and new young investigators from the same, in terms of properly weighing evidence and the testimony of witnesses. So, for you, they are ideal. For mature officers of the law, not so much.”

“Oh … okay,” Cousin Margie said.

“You enjoy your reading, Margie,” Cousin Maggie said. “I'm going to go warm up dinner.”

“Good evening, ladies,” Captain Lee said, and likewise excused himself, only turning around near his door when he heard someone coming off of the stairs behind him.

“Thank you,” said Cousin Maggie. “She's trying to find her way back into enjoying life, so I try not to discourage her, but, thank you for saying all of that.”

Captain Lee smiled.

“My pleasure. Your patience is commendable with your cousin.”

“Thank you. Keep me in prayer.”

“I always do,” the captain said, “as I know that you keep me there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Lee nearly said, “Call me Henry,” but, in 16 hours, he would be “sir” again. No need to cross that bridge.

“Good evening, Mrs. Thornton,” he said.

“Good evening, Captain Lee.”