Kathleen Kaska
I’m
not a newspaper reader, never have been. But my husband more than makes up for
it in our household. Since he discovered the pleasures of reading newspapers
online, he now keeps tabs on dozens of small towns we fell in love with while
on our cross-country trip a couple of years ago. I know the latest happenings
in Rockport, Alpine, and Palacios, Texas, Marblehead, Massachutes, Cedar Key
and Apalachola, Florida, and Nags Head, North Caroline, just to name a few. We
find out who’s doing what and where. But the most entertaining reads come from the
police blotters. And I realized these brief bits of bizarre news offer a
wellspring of ideas for mystery writers.
I
imagine what fun the police detectives must have crafting these reports. Recently,
the police in a nearby town uncovered a murder-for-hire plot by an inmate in
the county jail who was enlisting the help of a fellow inmate to murder the man
responsible for the guy’s incarceration. These were the instructions he gave to
the would-be killer, “Wet him with gasoline; dry him with a match.” A pretty
good line; right out of a Mickey Spillane novel. If this guy ever went
straight, he might make it as a pulp fiction writer.
Or
how about this one? A few weeks ago, the police in my quiet little town were
called to a
motel where a woman insisted they arrest her. She was hiding out
from her ex-husband and current boyfriend who, according to the woman, were
plotting to kill her. The cops explained they could not fulfill her wish
because she hadn’t committed a crime. With a that’s-what-you-think attitude,
she began pounding on the squad car’s windshield. When one of the officers
tried to restrain her, she bit him on the leg. For the next few hours, the
woman had the protection she’d requested.
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| photo credit to funnyjunk.com |
Or,
here’s one; “Just say you’re sorry.” Several peopled complained about a
homeless man who was causing a ruckus in a downtown square. The police arrived
and realized the man was shouting profanities at someone only he could see. The
cops told him to apologize to his imaginary friends. He did. End of story.
Check
your local police blotter. What strange tidbits can you share?
Stop by for a visit at Birds and Books.
Stop by for a visit at Birds and Books.
11 comments:
I appreciate the humor, Kathleen. As a former police reporter married to a highway patrolman, I experienced a lot of funny occurences. I once reported on the largest drug bust in U.S. history at the California-Mexican border, which should have made the front page, but the editor decided instead to run an article I had written about a barking rooster, which served as a San Diego family's watch dog.
You must have had some exciting experiences, too. I guess your editor felt the rooster story was a bit safer.
Loved this post, Kathleen. The line "She bit the cop on the leg" would be a great opening line for a story. I may steal it someday.
These are terrific! We just started getting the paper where we live now and I'll start paying more attention to those.
My morning always begins with my cat on my lap and the newspaper in my hand (yes, I'm a news dinosaur). My favorite section contains reporting of offbeat crimes from all over the country, most too weird to even put in a book, but definitely laugh worthy. But I'm going to be on the lookout now for some inventive opening lines!
Hi Earl,
The line is yours. The one I love the most is "Wet him with gasoline and dry him with a match."
Kaye, I always thought the small town papers offered the best in bizarre, but the Seattle blotter writers are so subtly funny.
Our mountain village has recently started publishing the Police Log. I read it avidly along with everybody else I suspect. I don't know if it's the writer or the people but it's so funny I've started saving them. Stranger than fiction.
I love stories like this--and some end up in my Rocky Bluff P.D. mysteries.
Kathleen,
Great post. I enjoyed the humor of your stories because so many crimes we read in the papers are sad and depressing. And some are so outrageous, we'd hesitate to include them in a book because readers would find them unbelievable.
Mar, I began keeping a file, too.
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