SIX OF THE WORST — CATRIONA MCPHERSON HAS FUN WITH CLICHED CHARACTERS CREATED ON PURPOSE

This week, we’re joined by multi-award-winning Catriona McPherson. Catriona was born near Edinburgh. Dandy Gilver and The Proper Treatment of Bloodstains won the Sue Feder Memorial Award in 2012 and Dandy Gilver and An Unsuitable Day for A Murder won the Agatha for Best Historical Novel in the same year. The series won the Bruce Alexander Award in 2013 and 2014. The Day She Died was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2015. Shelives in Davis, California, with her husband and two cats. She joins us to share some fun with clichéd characters her students came up with–on purpose. —Ken Isaacson

On the last weekend in May I was lucky enough to be one of the speakers at the third annual creative writing conference at the beautiful University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. (It’s the closest gracious, leafy campus to Hollywood and, consequently, has appeared as a New England college in countless films and telly programmes.)

One of the classes I taught was on character and as an exercise at the end of the session we split into groups and dreamed up the worst clichéd characters we could muster.

I said, for fun, I’d write a piece of flash fiction with about them and so . . . here it is: Six of The Worst. I make no apology for the characters, but the setting and “plot” are my responsibility. Please don’t sue me.

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Doris and Mary had been friends for 37 years, ever since Doris arrived in the little New England town of Millberry to take up her first teaching job, and moved into the cottage behind Mary’s clapboard home.

Mary always came to the recitals Doris masterminded with her sixth grade classes and Doris always accompanied Mary on the rounds of weekend yard sales as she searched for additions to her Bambi collection. In the evenings, Doris would grade papers — it was easy work; she had been teaching the same material for three and a half decades — while Mary communed with QVC, looking for Bambi-themed linens, yard ornaments and, unfortunately, clothing.

They had never been to New York before and, as they stared at one another in the dimness of the alley, each was deciding that they would never come again.

Just behind Doris, the lights visible through her thin cloud of hair, Times Square wriggled with tourists. Just in front of Doris, a man lay on his back with a long thin skewer sticking straight up from his chest, looking like someone whose wriggling days were over.

“Well,” said Mary, with a flash of her jade eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I could eat. Italian?”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” Doris demanded, her chocolate-brown eyes flashing back. “How about ‘Sorry, I dragged you in here’, ‘Sorry I had so much brunch I had to take my spanx off’, ‘Sorry, I wouldn’t go to a restroom like a human being’?”

Before Mary could answer, they both heard a commotion from the dark end of the alley and looked round to see a man righting himself after vaulting the chain-link fence. He dusted down his tweed jacket, straining across burly shoulders, and walked towards them, the steel tips on his cowboy boots ringing out and his piercing azure eyes fixing them with a glare.

“Help you, ladies?” he said. “I’m John Bookman, private eye.”

“Not so fast, John,” came a voice from the alley mouth. Doris and Mary reeled round to see another man, even taller, even broader, even more piercingly eyed and more ringingly steel-tipped, strolling towards them. “Is this man bothering you?” he asked. “I’m John Smith, investigation agent.”

“Butt out, John,” said the first John. “I got it.”

The new John flexed his shoulders and gave a lazy smile. “I just can’t kick the habit of calling the play, I guess,” he said.

There was a loud snort from behind a nearby dumpster. Both Johns, Mary and Doris wheeled around to see what had made the noise.

With a rustle of garbage, a man who’d be taller than either John if he weren’t squatting, and who was broader than both put together – morbidly broad actually, duck-walked out from his hiding place and slowly straightened with a series of creaks. When he was upright, he winked one of his steely-blue eyes at Doris and Mary.

“Colt Stone,” he said. “Discreet Enquiries. And Rollin’,”

“And what?” said Doris.

Colt whistled through his teeth and a small terrier with a pizza crust in its mouth came trotting out from behind the dumpster, wagging its stubby tail, a friendly look in its Kelly-green eyes.

“Again with the dog!” said the first John. “Turn the page already.”

Colt Stone groaned. “The page? Really? Ladies, with John Bookman – Get it? Bookman – you need to look out for puns.”

The second John made a T-shape with his two hands. “Time-out, guys,” he said.

John Bookman and Colt Stone both groaned.

“Smith was a quarterback,” Bookman explained. “It comes up.”

Rollin’ the dog yipped and scratched at his master’s pants leg.

“What’s that, boy?” said Colt. “You think we should quit yakking cos there’s a stiff one? I agre-”

“No!” said a voice from a deep doorway opposite the dumpster. As its owner stepped forward, the first thing Doris and Mary could see were his cold, silver eyes, then his flame-red hair, then the rest of his six-foot-tall frame, with its hulking shoulders. “No,” he said again. “There are eighty million dogs in the US, divided amongst thirty seven per cent of households. The chances of one of them being able to-”

Colt and both Johns groaned.

“This is Dirk Hillingsby,” Colt said.

“Independent investigator,” said the new arrival. “And numerical savant.”

“Really?” said Mary, fluttering at him. Her jade eyes were large and faun-like with long, faun-like lashes. That’s what started the Bambi thing. “My little grandson is a born math genius too and he-”

“I wasn’t born this way,” Dirk said. “I was hit on the head during a mugging.”

“Oh!” Mary said. “How terrible.”

“Don’t encourage him,” said John Bookman. “Ladies, did you call nine-one-one? I like to do things by the-”

“I’d hate to have only one play, like you,” said John Smith. “I’m a-”

“If you say the words “dual threat” I’m gonna tell Rollin’ to bite you,” said Colt. The terrier put his tail down and bared his little teeth.

“There’s no need for nine-one- one,” said Doris. “We’re not the official type. We just saw a problem and we fixed it. It’s not the first time.”

“It’s . . .” said Dirk. He tried again. “It’s not the first time you’ve killed a guy with a knitting needle? Wow! Even though there are fifteen thousand homicides each year per head of pop-””

“Drug deal gone wrong?” said John Smith, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve left that world behind me now but I still-”

“Yep, I’ve been clean three years too,” said Dirk, a look of resolve in his eyes.

“It’s only “clean” if it’s drugs,” said Colt, his eyes steelier than ever. “Yours was drink.”

“So was yours!” Dirk snapped.

“I took pills,” said John Bookman, with a sad look piercing his eyes. “After my parents died.”

“Oh, you poor boy!” said Mary. “You’re an orphan?”

“I’m divorced,” said Colt. “She left me when Rollin’ was no more than a pu-”

“We’re all divorced,” said Dirk.

“I’m not surprised,” muttered Doris, under her breath. “Well, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got tickets to a matinee and my friend here is hungry.”

“Wait!” barked Colt and Rollin’ joined him.

“You can’t just call time and leave the field,” Smith added.

“Oh, I’m sure you four together can solve a murder you happened to witness,” Mary said. “You’ll track us down.”

“Give us a clue to get us started,” said Dirk. “Stabbings only make up ten percent of homicides but the solve rate is-”

“At least tell us your motive,” said Bookman. “What’s the story?”

Doris and Mary exchanged a look. Mary nodded.

“He deserved it,” Doris said, with her usually-warm brown eyes as cold as river mud in winter. “He harmed-” She gasped. “He harmed-”

“Show them, Doris,” Mary said, her usually-bright jade eyes dulled by pain.

Doris opened the front of her quilted jacket. Inside the deep pocket she had added herself, adapting the pattern, a pair of eyes gleamed. They were mostly a yellowish green like a gooseberry, but lightly flecked with amber and gold, and spangled here and there with amethyst.

“Yes,” said Doris, her voice shaking. “He harmed a kitten.”

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—Catriona McPherson