by Michelle Gagnon
I was recently asked to participate in an anthology whose sales will benefit one of my favorite non-profits, 826 National. If you aren’t familiar with the amazing work they do to promote writing among kids, be sure to follow the link and find out! They have programs in several major cities now, including SF, NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago, Michigan, & Seattle, and there are lots of opportunities to donate and/or volunteer.
Anyway, the basis of the anthology is inspired: they’ve asked a number of renowned authors such as Dave Eggers, Lauren Oliver, and Daniel Handler to submit alibis because, sadly, we’re all suspects in the murder of the world’s meanest editor.
Is that perfect, or what?
So I thought that today we’d do something a little different today. Submit YOUR alibi for the murder of the world’s meanest editor. The only rules are:
- Brevity: keep it short, 100-200 words max (I’m looking at you, Mr. Sands)
- Language: keep it clean, folks; after all, this is a family blog.
Other than that, be as creative/zany as you’d like.
The Set-Up:
On the night of Wednesday, October 5th, Mr. William H. Meany III, the famed editor of such works as, I HATE YOU ALL OVER and IT’S LITERARY FICTION, SO WE DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T READ IT, was found dead in his home. That evening, Mr. Meany had played host to several reluctant authors, some of whom have spent decades under the brutal subjugation of his notorious “red pen of tears and shame,” a term that Mr. Meany not only coined, but copyrighted. It’s generally agreed that Mr. Meany was the author of the scandalous publishing blog, “I know what you did in your last manuscript,” which accused numerous famous writers of plagiarism, ghost writing, and improper use of gerunds, and was operated under the pseudonym “Nom de Plume Rouge.”
The police are currently requesting alibis for everyone present. It’s important that you be able to account for your whereabouts from 6:30pm that evening until shortly after midnight, when Mr. Meany was found facedown in a pool of blood, surrounded by the pages of a shredded manuscript. Rumor has it that he had threatened several of the attendees with revealing their deepest, darkest secret over nightcaps. He was murdered before making good on that threat.
Enjoy…
Hmmm. Given my attitude toward publishing right now, I might be the guy to greet the cops with, “Yeah, I did it. And I’d do it again. I’m only sorry I could only kill him once.”
Hmm. Those probably should have been inside words, shouldn’t they?
I was with Michelle Gagnon. I was pitching my idea for a book. She said I did very well. I felt sorry for her as she almost fell asleep from jet lag. I said almost, as she started to do a face plant on the table when she started to fall asleep, but my manuscript stopped her face. I spent a large bit of time trying to dry the pages out after she accidentally spilled her wine on it. Then I had to rearrange the pages when she accidentally dropped it on the floor. Hey, maybe she wasn’t honest with me…….
I was hosting a Luther party with several friends for what had been advertised as the premiere of the second season. We watched the six episodes of Season One and ate a bag of Zepp’s potato chips every time he trashed something. At 10:00 PM we tuned into BBC America for the premiere and discovered that it had premiered last week and that the second episode was what we were watching. So we trashed the neighborhood. I have the police report right here.
“Murder? There was a murder at the party…cool.”
“Can you account for your time this evening…from the time you said you arrived at 6:30?”
“Yeah, I was at the pool.”
“The whole time? That’s six hours. You aren’t even wearing a swimsuit, like some of the others.”
“I don’t do spandex.”
“Can anyone back up your story?”
“About the spandex?”
When the detective gave me the stink eye, I heaved a sigh and gave him the only alibi I had.
“Uh…yeah, I guess there were witnesses who can put me by the pool for 6 hours. I have 2,036 peeps who can.” When the cop in the cheap suit acted like he didn’t believe me, I explained.”I was tweeting, man. The whole time. And I got pics to prove it. Check it.”
I handed him my cell phone flipped to Tweetdeck. After he scanned the time stamps for my countless posts and pics, he glared at me as he handed back my cell.
“These pictures are all of Barry Eisler.”
“There’s one of Joe Konrath doing a cannonball, but yeah. Pretty much. I came for Eisler’s gun show.”
“Do me a favor. Get out of my face.”
“Yes, sir.”
A Transcript:
State your name for the record.
Morris. Manfred Morris.
Many thanks. Mr. Morris, did you murder Mr. Meany?
Mr. Meany? The manic manuscript mangler? Murdered? Imagine.
No, Mr. Morris, you imagine.
Look. Many men meant Meany mayhem. The man was a moron. Maybe I might have mentioned mal intent, but murder is not my M.O. I’m more a moderate when I’m mad. Anyway, I haven’t seen Meany since Monday morning.
Mr. Morris, where were you yesterday from mid-evening to midnight?
Minding my manners, sipping Manhattans at Maggy Magill’s. Makes a mean Manhattan, Maggie does.
Any witnesses?
Well, there was Wally Wise. Winnie Wintham was wandering around as well. Wally might be the one you’re wanting. He wondered Wednesday whether a window washer would be willing to wax Willliam.
Why a window washer?
Do your wondering with Wally. Can I leave now?
To whom it may concern:
On the night in question, I was unable to enjoy, I mean observe who heroically slew the old dragon. Too bad, it wasn’t done before he got a hold of my last piece… I mean, how tragic of course. I was at home alone in my thoughts pondering the cantankerous old… I mean, the dirty… uh, dear man’s skewed comments on my poor use of proper English sentence structure.
As much as I would like to take credit for his timely death, I cannot. I never had the mustard to do what was right. But, I can and do applaud whoever did and tell you that the world of writing is a better, brighter place because of it.
Lastly, since I was unable to view the corpse or crime scene, I hope to read that the instrument of justice that felled him was his favorite red pen and that it was shoved up his… uh-hh nose.
You’ll have to forgive my tears, I haven’t laughed this hard since I don’t know when. It feels so good to be free.
Warmest regards,
Mrs. William H. Meany III
Ooh, loving these. Thus far, Dana has securely positioned herself as the prime suspect.
Cheryle, good on you for picking up on the fact that I’m rarely a reliable alibi witness (ha!)
Joe & Jordan, you’re off the hook.
John, I’m holding you on suspicion of excessive alliteration.
And Dooginator, I’m starting to think you might have conspired with Dana…
I was doing his daughter in the back seat of my pickup truck, behind that old Chinese Restaurant, you know, on the corner of Third and Columbia?
This comment has been removed by the author.
“Is that red ink on your fingers?”
“Miss Starr, Rae Starr.” She rolled her hands over and looked at her index fingers. “I believe it’s pink highlighter Sir.”
“Why would you have it on your hands Miss Starr?”
“I was editing. Mr. Meany had me revising an article. He said it didn’t have enough blood flowing from its guts and he wanted it revised before morning.” He jotted everything down in a small, worn, moleskin book.
“Where were you last night between 6:30 pm and midnight?”
“In my room working on the article.” He looked right into her. She looked at her hands. “I did sneak past the pool party to grab a burger around 7:30pm.” Her baby blues looked right back at him. “I knew if I went down to the bar or the hotel café, he would know.”
“Why didn’t you order room service?”
“Have you seen the menu? Grilled cheese sandwiches cost $24!”
“Can I see the article?”
“It went missing while I was out for dinner. “ Her eyelashes lowered over her eyes. “I don’t know if I lost it or someone took it. I only had a hard copy. Mr. Meany had my computer.”
“Hey officer, I hate to say it wasn’t me.”
“You sayin’ ya didn’t wanna kill him?”
“Nope, I’m sayin’ I missed. Hard enough to make a shot like that from 1000 yards, but some knuckle head beat me to the pull by half a second & I ended up popping a portrait of Johnny Cash right behind where the bastard’s head should’a been had he not dropped to the floor like a possum what quit playin’.”
“Sir, there’s no portrait of Johnny Cash in the victim’s home.”
“Uh….who we talkin’ ’bout again?”
“Where were you between 6:30 and midnight?”
Well, I got here late, as I’m apt to doing and I grabbed some grub by the pool.
Well his daughter tells me she’s having a problem and asked me to help her out. We leave the pool and I check out under her hood. Well this comes off, then that comes off, and the plugs get cleaned.
Well that led to something else, and this has to get removed and that gets moved over that way, and the crank gets spun. And it went like that until about 1 this morning.
“So you had sexual relations with his daughter?”
No, I was working on her car.
This comment has been removed by the author.
“Let’s go over it again.”
I shifted in my chair. “I already told you.” Crossed my legs. “Yes. We had an argument. Yes. I hit him over the head with a wicker chair. But I left after that. To smoke. It levels me out.”
The detective leaned forward, did that thing where she acted like she was hard of hearing again. “And what were you fighting about?”
She acted so smug.
I gestured. “He said that the PowerPoint chapter of A Visit From the Goon Squad was a sign of the Apocalypse, that ‘Rome had fallen’ as he put it.”
“Uh-huh.”
I bit my lip. She was really getting on my nerves now. “I said that was ridiculous. And then he said,” I switched to a bad English accent, “‘No, your wife’s dress tonight, now that’s ridiculous. Ghastly, really.'”
“And then you hit him with the chair? Bit of an overreaction.”
“Yeah.” I held up my hands. “But that’s why my wife suggested we go smoke. Stephen, Stephen King, he told her he was carrying, said we should all go somewhere and mellow out.”
She used her iPhone to record the name. “And what do you mean by ‘carrying,’ exactly?”
“Ummm…” I shifted in my chair again. Crap.
Where was I, you want to know? Why, I was where all good, law-abiding writers are — BIC, butt in chair, putting the finishing touches on my manuscript.
Where’s that manuscript, you ask? Well, it’s not really a complete manuscript at this point. More of an outline. Okay, more of a list of possible characters. No plot yet, per se.
I have the right to what? Oh, right. I should have seen that coming.
LOL! Loved everyone’s contributions. Thank you!
BK Jackson
And the suspect pool widens…I have to say, not terribly convincing alibis. At this point I’m thinking it was some sort of RICO plot.
*sigh* Sometimes I get emotional. I left the party early, and vowed to just start over. That guy will stain a writer’s reputation forever, so I decided just to come up through the ranks all over again. New pen name, new everything. I started creating an online identity and contacted some folks I could trust. That was until about 11. I’m afraid the only witness is my laptop, a few accounts, and emails sent to friends at various times. Then I fell asleep right there on my keyboard. There are 8 hours’ worth of k’s on an unsent email now, you can check – I haven’t gotten around to deleting it. Actually, I haven’t gotten around to what all I did that night, but now that he’s dead I suppose it will all need deleting. Do you know who is replacement will be? His half-sister, Miss Mangle? Huh.
I was in the conservatory with Miss Scarlett, fetching candlesticks, Officer. The lights had just gone out, and being just old meany’s lowly assistant, he’d ordered me to fetch candlesticks to place around the pool. The party shall proceed, he said, or else. Miss Scarlett, she’s his unpaid intern, helped me. She couldn’t stand his grouping anymore. I don’t mind saying that we took our sweet time fetching the candlesticks and the candles. By the time we got back to the pool, the old mean-meister was dead. That’s when the party really got fun. Scarlett and I fetched the champagne ourselves.
(Sorry, lots of typos above. That would be “groping” among other mis-typed mistakes…)