Ecuperating - Chapter 2

Jayne Rice opened her mail with glee. She knew the letter from her publisher would confirm the transfer of funds to her bank account in Escanaba, Michigan. It was the final payment for her latest novel, Midnight ‘Til Dawn. The novel was another best seller. That made 10 in a row. The first of her Midnight novels was a good seller, but it didn’t come close to being a best seller. It did, however, give her enough money to continue her writing career. She kissed the letter, smiled and went to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. She strolled out onto the deck of her home.

It was completely dark by 7 in the evening this time of year. The last days of October in Upper Michigan were nippy, with the temperature at night sometimes well below freezing. Snow is just around the corner, Jayne thought. Time to get the hell out of here. She gazed up at the northern sky. The northern lights were putting on another spectacular show, dancing with blue and white. The lights of Escanaba, across Bay de Noc, were sparkling along the far shore. Jayne shook her blond ponytail and retreated indoors. She glanced at a mirror on the door as she passed and smiled. Her smile was the best thing about her. Not that she wasn’t pretty, but her smile was dazzling. It lit up the entire room when she turned it on, and she usually did.

Not bad for 35, she thought. Of course, the blond was not real. She had dyed it after her late husband had died 5 years ago. She needed the change and she liked what she did for her. It made her look 15 years younger. Everybody said so. She laughed. Of course, they are all my friends! What else can they say? Her figure was again trim. She stood five feet seven in her stocking feet. Not too tall, but not exactly a small girl either. Her twin 38’s still had some substance, but gravity was doing its darndest to take over.

Jayne’s true hair color was a mousy brown. In high school she wasn’t the popular cheerleader type. She was more the biker girl type. She got pregnant when she was 15, quit school, and got married. She lost the baby and three more in the next three years. When she was 19 her husband was beating her up on the front lawn when the cop across the street intervened and kicked the shit out of her husband.

After she divorced the jerk, she married the cop from across the street. John Rice was 30 years her senior. It was the best move she ever made. John treated her like a queen. They loved to come up to Upper Michigan and sail on their 26 foot Carver. Jayne gained over 100 pounds and topped off the scales at over 250 the first year they were married. John used to kid her about just having more for him to love. He wasn’t kidding. He used to say she was “tons of fun!”

He meant it. It didn’t dawn on her until after he died just how much he really cared for her. He used to say, “Honey, move over to the left a little, there’s too much sun there where you are,” or, “Honey, get into the center cabin to get out of the wind a bit.” What he really meant was to move over, your weight is throwing the boat off center.

She completed high school with a GED and was happily married for ten years. They would spend most of the year in Rhode Island, where he was still a cop, a month or so in his family’s summer home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and a few times they would take a week or so to play poker in Vegas in the winter.

He loved it there in Michigan and she learned to love it too. Right after they were married, the last of his family died and the summer home became his. He couldn’t wait to retire and spend the rest of his life in Michigan. He didn’t make it. He died of a heart attack ten years after they were married.

Jayne went up to Michigan to sell the summer home and realized that she would rather sell the home in Rhode Island. She went back to Rhode Island; sold her home; packed up everything she had; dyed her hair a Marilyn Monroe blond and moved to the Stonington Peninsula in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She spent every summer there, and every winter in Las Vegas, where she played a mean game of poker. In the meantime she lost over 100 pounds and got back into great shape.

Jayne had always wanted to write, but her lack of education didn’t lend much confidence in her ability to do so. When her husband died and she moved to Michigan, she had the time to spend on her writing.

She never did learn to spell very well, and always thanked God for the spell checker on her computer. She had never been able to see the nuances in the “too, two and to” and the “there, they’re and their”.

Her latest best seller, Midnight ‘Til Dawn, was a novel about Las Vegas. It dealt with a female pit boss in the poker room in the Fremont Casino who had been murdered back in the 70’s. Popular belief at the time was that the husband had killed her, but try as they might, the cops couldn’t bring him to justice.

The book also dealt with a poker player called Michigan Slim who played poker there about the same time. Michigan Slim was reported to be a great player who chose to play in the small games. He would begin play at midnight, and play until dawn. Thus the name of the book.

“Midnight is when the dealers change shifts,” he explained. “And they all think they can play the game well.” Michigan Slim would win at least $300 every night in those small games. In the 1970’s that was pretty good money. He lived quite well. One day he just disappeared. The dealers would joke about Slim being planted in the desert just south of Vegas.

In Midnight ‘Til Dawn Jayne brought back Michigan Slim who was to solve the crime against the beautiful pit boss, and marry her equally beautiful sister in the process. The public loved it.

Jayne opened the refrigerator, took out a wine cooler, settled in the overstuffed recliner across from the large screen TV and clicked the remote, turning on the TV. She surfed until she found one of her favorite programs, Cold Cases. Immediately after finishing a novel, Jayne couldn’t slow down without having an idea for the next one. Her favorite spot for getting her ideas was through TV and these old cases from years past.

The story tonight was about a child molester who was found shot to death in his own bedroom way back in 1955 in Newberry, Michigan. Hell, Jane thought, that’s only about 80 miles from here! They sure must be hard up for a case for that one to make the unsolved list. The story was about the fact that there were no clues in the case save a partial thumb print that may or may not belong to the perpetrator. It was thought the father of the boy he molested might have been guilty, but without proof, the police could do nothing. Jane moved on to FBI Files. Then moved on to Unsolved Mysteries.

Unsolved Mysteries was about unsolved massacres. The most recent one was in 1983 in New York City. It seems that an entire mafia family had been wiped out on January 26th, 27th and 28 of 1983 without a trace. Twenty six members of the Tessinari family had been murdered.

Nineteen were blown up in a pool hall and seven others had been shot in their homes over the three day period. It was deemed a mob hit where rival gangs were warring for some reason. No one ever knew for sure. The only clue was a partial thumbprint on the bathroom door knob of Tony Tessinari, the boss of the family. His head had been blown off by a shotgun blast from a 12 gauge with buckshot.

Jayne shot to attention. A partial thumbprint! she thought. And there was a partial thumbprint in the Newberry murder back in ’55! Wouldn’t it be something if they were the same? Shees! I think I have a new book here! Jayne was very excited, scenarios blowing across her mind like storms. It could make a wonderful story! She thought once again.