Audio stories in the collection.
Murder at the Gas Pump
An original audio story for Appaloosa Radio
Coughlin, California has only had one murder. Bernard Winslow Schlafer (the Third) was a scion of one of the Central Valley’s richest and most important families. Yet, when the time came for him to assume responsibilities in the family businesses, he left Coughlin for Los Angeles where he eventually produced a sleazy reality game show entitled, “Seduction!”
Barnie S. (as he now prefers to be known) returned to his hometown to seek additional funding from his maternal grandmother for his television endeavor. On his way back to LA, he stops for gas and lottery tickets at the Log Cabin Liquor and Gas. While he is filling his car, a white sedan enters the parking lot. A man emerges and shoots Barnie S. with an AR-15.
The assassination took less than five seconds.
Hank’s Murder
Based on an actual murder case.
This was a very puzzling case. We had lots of blood, but no fingerprints. None of the neighbors had seen anything. Hank Triffitti had no enemies. He seemed to have a wife who genuinely loved him.
All we knew from the autopsy report was that the victim was struck from above with a sharp, bladed weapon. The perpetrator was right-handed, probably considerably taller than the 5 ft 10 victim. It appeared to be a single stroke, one massive stroke with a sharp weapon. The blow had been strong enough to cut through the victim’s left forearm (raised in defense) and the victim’s neck. One mighty blow.
One episode
Reflexology
An Unsolved Murder Mystery
The small business sat in an Austin strip mall between a pizza place and a nail salon, three doors down from a Japanese Sushi restaurant. On its red neon sign was the single word “reflexology.” The proprietor specialized in what he called “oriental foot massages,” stimulating the nerves, and improving a body’s health.
It was 5:45 in the evening, and in mid-December, it was already dark. The red neon “reflexology” sign was visible across the whole parking lot. None of the signs from the other businesses had yet switched on.
In the foot-massage client waiting area, the proprietor sat on one of the chairs, looking intently at his phone. After five or six minutes, he got up and walked outside. In front of the sushi restaurant was a bench where customers of the Japanese restaurant sat while they waited for their to-go orders. He sat on the bench and lit a cigarette.
He finished his cigarette, glanced at his phone, and then stood up.
Thirty seconds later, he lay on the sidewalk, dead. He fell face down. next to the red wooden bench in front of the sushi restaurant.
No one remembered hearing a shot.
One episode
Regarding a Murder
Bakersfield, 1947
A private investigator revisits an old murder, one that impacted him personally and directly.
“It was November 18, 1947. I had just turned eight and was in the Third Grade at Wayside Elementary School in the southern edge of Bakersfield.
Every day, my younger brother and I walked the three-quarters of a mile from our house in the Southgate area to the school. To avoid walking along the busy Casa Loma Highway, we crossed the irrigation canal on a narrow cement bridge, a hundred yards south of the Highway. It was near there that the grisly event occurred.
A kindergartener, a five-year-old girl was murdered the night before, battered innumerable times, the radio said, with a hammer.”
Two chapters