by Janis Patterson
Perhaps it is the logical outcome of a disordered mind, but
after several years of writing mysteries I tend to weaponize just about
everything I see. My friends have become inured to this little quirk, but it
sometimes does startle the people nearby.
I remember once going for a girls-only lunch at a trendy
little cafe one of my girlfriends had heard about. The publicity had been
wide-ranging, the food expensive but acceptable, the decor trendy - and very
uncomfortable. Our table and chairs were made from metal tortured into shapes
that few would believe were capable of supporting either food or human bodies.
My friends either liked them or speculated if they were left over from the time
of Torquemada. I speculated on using the chairs at least as a murder weapon,
the table being too heavy to lift, saying that because of their strange configuration
no one could ever describe them just from the wounds they would leave. The
people at the next table left.
And it's not just me, either. When The Husband and I were
staying at the dig house at the El Kab excavation in Egypt researching my book
A Killing at El Kab the archaeologists and I were brainstorming about a murder
weapon. I had almost decided on a broken chunk of statuary when the
ceramologist (the pottery expert) had an idea and rushed out. He was back in a
moment bearing one of the wickedest implements I ever did see. About a yard
long, it was a heavy-duty caliper with a shaft of thick steel and a head
vaguely resembling a pick-axe about 10 inches wide and an inch thick. It was
perfect and because of the story and setting it was obviously the murder weapon
(found covered with blood and lying next to the body) so I couldn't bring in
the forensic 'What kind of implement could make this sort of wound?' trope...
but it would have been so neat.
Once you become accustomed to looking at everyday objects
through the lens of potential mayhem, the world indeed becomes a dangerous
place. A gleaming sports trophy becomes a cudgel. A beautiful garden morphs
into a buffet of potentially lethal plants. Sleek silk scarves make stylish but
deadly garrotes.
My friends - mostly writers themselves but some not - have
become accustomed to my whimsical forays into specialized slaughter and most
find them amusing. I do tend to forget, though, that not everyone is privy to
the basic innocence of my flights of fancy, viz the one time a group of us were
sitting in a cafe (one with normal chairs, thank goodness) and I was
speculating on the old trope of a piece of frozen meat being used as a blunt
object and the ease of disposing of the murder weapon. My luncheon companions
were becoming more and more uncomfortable, which I could not understand as we
had had many similar conversations, until one of them revealed that the table
behind me held a gaggle of uniformed police officers who were listening to our
conversation with undisguised interest. Immediately our chatter switched to the
intractability of our publishers, our current book release schedules, the necessity
of finding good editors and other blatantly literary subjects. Luckily that day
my luncheon expenses did not include bail. I even gave each officer one of my
business cards as we left.
In real life most criminals are not smart - if they were, they
wouldn't be criminals - and fiendish murderers with arcane methods and obscure
weapons are very thin on the ground. Most real life murders are simple things -
shot, strangled, stabbed, beaten; in fiction, though, we can let our
imaginations soar. Our killers can use any of a million or more objects/methods
to kill and get away with it until our intrepid sleuth tracks them down - and
one of the glories of fiction is that the murderer is always brought to justice
no matter how clever his killing.
Just be careful when you plot it in a public place.
