Author: sandcastle

Story Prompt part 3

My friend, Nick Russell, author of the Big Lake mysteries among other books, says his characters often lead his stories off in unexpected directions and he just follows them. I didn’t actually understand that until this woman started talking to me. Here’s the next story she told me.

An Odd Path

“Whew!, I got away with it again. It gets harder each time. But, having made it my life’s mission to rid the world of such horrible men has certainly been worth doing.

I never expected my life to take this turn but I don’t think I’m sorry it did. I would much rather have had my fiancé turn out to be a good man but life so often takes an odd path.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

When I first met the man who became my fiancé I was impressed by him. He seemed to be a wealthy and generous man. Once we were engaged to be married he gave me nice jewelry that I enjoyed wearing.

Until the day a man accused me of stealing his wife’s necklace. I assured him I had done no such thing but he didn’t believe me and had me arrested.

The authorities said I needed to hand over all my jewelry so I did.

It turned out it was all stolen and I was in big trouble. I told them my fiancé had given me the jewels but, again, they didn’t believe me.

But, they did question him and the rightful owners. It turned out I could prove I was not where the jewels were stolen. But witnesses testified he was there each time.

So, I was freed and he went to jail.Which felt good.

So good I started looking for other bad guys I could help get what they deserved.”

Story Prompt continued

This morning I woke up thinking about the last line of my very short story Self Defense. It said, “You can imagine how that trial turned out.”

Several times I tried to change the word “that” to “the” but my brain insisted “that” was the right word.

Does that mean there was another trial? What else did she do? Was her explanation even true? Did we all get fooled? Will we ever know?

What do you think?

TTYL,

Linda

Story Prompt

During the night last night I woke up with this running through my head, “It’s hard to plead self-defense when you’ve shot a man in the back.”

By the time I finished taking my shower this morning I had mentally written this very short story.

Self Defense

I never expected to find myself in a courtroom let alone being the defendant in a murder trial. When the judge asked me how I pled I said, “Not guilty because it was self defense.”

He replied,  “It’s hard to plead self-defense when you’ve shot a man in the back. How did that come about?”

So I told him. “When I met the now deceased he was a bit of a dandy and I was impressed. By the time he asked me to marry him I’d gotten to know him a bit better and there were hints of things I didn’t like so I turned him down. The next night he kidnapped me. When I tried to resist he beat me so badly I could hardly move. Then he took me to his cabin, tore off my clothes, and threw me on the bed. He then took off his gun belt and laid it on a table near the bed, and began undressing. As I said, he was a bit of a dandy so he turned his back to hang his clothes on a chair. When he did I grabbed his gun and shot him.”

You can imagine how that trial turned out.

TTYL,

Linda