I’m still trying to like coffee given its health benefits but gravitate toward an aromatic black tea and chocolate biscotti every morning when I sit down to write, my dog nestled around my feet under the table. It sets the tone for my day. I can drift into my cozy mystery world and write myself into and out of corners all day long.
My grandfather and my mother cultivated my love of mysteries. I read voraciously. I was a high school and college mathematics instructor, and my off time, I wrote the beginnings of multiple stories, but while out walking my own Maverick, I found an abandoned car at the edge of the slough in our local wildlife protection area and imagined a body in the truck. Nothing is stranger than real life. That inspired “Maverick, Movies & Murder,” the first in the continuing series, the gist of which is:
After losing everything, Katie Wilk is starting life over in Columbia, Minnesota, with a new career—giving up cryptanalysis in favor of teaching school—and a canine companion, Maverick, a black Labrador retriever. But on one of their first outings, Katie and Maverick discover a dead body in a nearby marshland. In her haste, she’s injured, and the ER doctor on duty, Pete Erickson, is happy to stitch her wound. As the son of the police chief, Pete tries to steer her away from the investigation, but Katie feels the need to know what happened to the victim.
Meanwhile, the locals are gearing up for the premiere of a new docudrama film called Titanic: One Story, which would be the cornerstone piece of a new Titanic exhibit, to open at the Midwest Minnesota History Center. The movie director selected Columbia, his hometown, as the location for some of the scenes, and many residents are featured as extras in the movie. There will be a huge gala dinner and celebration for the grand opening. Tragedy strikes again when the director is killed. Katie finds herself in the midst of it all and doesn’t know anyone in town well enough to know who she can trust.
I’ve been fortunate to receive kind words from follow authors.
Praise for the Katie and Maverick Cozy Mysteries:
“Immediately captivating! Katie and Maverick are destined to become a notable amateur sleuth team in the mystery world.” –Connie Shelton, USA Today bestselling author
ONE
The bullets changed everything for me. Sometimes I wished I’d taken a bullet too, because I lost the most important men in my life. My dad still fought every day to reclaim his confidence, mobility, and wit from the bullet that creased his brain. But my husband of seventeen days took our dreams with him when he died. They never caught the shooter.
“Promise me.” Charles’s bloody hands gripped mine. “Promise me you’ll be happy.”
I had to try to keep that promise, so after a year of indulging my sorrow and wading through mind-numbing platitudes, I threw away the flood of sympathy cards and letters. I needed to return to the world, to sink or swim.
And my stepmother wanted me out of there.
At her insistence, and to the surprise of my therapist, I circulated my resumé́. Neither of them, however, congratulated me when I accepted a position one hundred fifty miles from home. New town. New people. A job in my area of expertise. Truth be told, I accepted the only offer I received—teaching high school math.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. I missed the fairytale life I had planned—an adoring husband, challenging job, devoted family—but I packed my meager belongings and moved to Columbia, Minnesota, determined to make it my home. The gem of a town snugged into prairie grasses surrounded by rich farmland, acreage dedicated to wildlife management, and lots and lots of water.
Following a second fruitless week of apartment- hunting, I returned to the bed and breakfast with a little less spring in my step.
“He was a real gentleman today. Let me get him,” said the desk clerk. He disappeared into the recesses of the office.
I heard the rhythmic clack of nails across the tile floor before I saw him and steeled myself for the onslaught of Maverick’s ecstatic welcome. He rounded the desk and buried his black nose between my legs, drooling all over. His tail whumped against the desk, and he pawed my thigh.
“Sit,” I said. “Sit.” Maverick jumped and licked my face then circled behind me, wrapping the leash around my legs before his rump hit the floor.
“He missed you. Look, he’s smiling.”
Maverick gazed at me with sparkling brown eyes. To me, it looked like laughing.
“Find anything today?”
I’d been searching for a place to park my belongings, anxious to live life out of a closet instead of a suitcase. The Monongalia Bed and Breakfast provided good food, clean bedding, daily vacuuming, and fresh towels every other day, but the expense was eating into my savings and my first paycheck was weeks away.
“Nothing yet. Do you have any hot prospects for me?” Mr. Walsh had recommended a cheery coffee shop, a delightful deli, a local market, walking paths, and a hardware store that had one of just about anything but apartments.
“The film people will be finishing up soon.” He tapped a notice on the front desk. The words written in cherry-red marker stood out: Servers needed. Great pay. The attached article stated that although most of the filming had been completed on a sound stage built for the movie, when the director needed a crowd, he came home for the extras and a docudrama about the Titanic needed plenty of extras. After months of shooting, the director planned to re-create the famed ship’s final dinner and take promotional shots. “You should do it. Half the town is in the movie. You’ll see Columbia in all its red-carpet glory and know what you’re getting yourself into.”
Maverick stood and pulled at the leash. I sighed. The clerk said with a satisfied grin, “He can stay with me Friday night.”
The promised compensation would help stretch my dwindling funds, so I signed my name on the next line: Katie Wilk.
