Expectation: A Francesca Fruscella Mystery - Softcover

Deshell, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573661759 ISBN 13: 9781573661751

Verlag: F2C, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

On the surface a murder mystery—a detective’s search for the killer of five people in Denver—Expectation is also, among other things, a meditation on the relationship between language and music.

In his newest novel, Jeffrey DeShell draws on the musical innovations of Arnold Schoenberg—by turns traditional, serial, and atonal—to inform his grammar and language. Moving progressively through specific Schoenberg compositions, DeShell complicates the surface of his text into lyrical derivatives, all the while drawing us into a murder mystery like no other as Detective Francisca Fruscella pursues both the killer and her own complicated personal history.

By turns rapturous, rigorous, and gripping, Expectation is a thriller of another kind—and a bold venture to the limits of the mystery genre and language itself.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeffrey DeShell is the author of the novels In Heaven Everything is Fine, S & M, Peter: An (A)Historical Romance, The Trouble with Being Born, and Arthouse.

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Expectation

A FRANCESCA FRUSCELLA MYSTERY

By JEFFREY DESHELL

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey DeShell
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57366-175-1

CHAPTER 1

Fünf Klavierstückeop. 23

I. sehr langsam

Investigation of murder involves the ability to recognizeand articulate patterns: sometimes the patterns are spatial,evidence restricted to specific sites. Motifs of time requirethe detective to excavate and sift, fact often the wallflower,remains reluctant, outline blending into obscure background.Crimes of passion are the easiest to understand andsolve: love, often wonderfully sweet, can leave horrific stains,blotting through white sheets, marks on paper indicting theirauthor. After choking or stabbing, killers, now the aggrieved,are truculent, victims forced into self-protective acts. Patternsof psychopaths can frustrate the detective: in examiningand comprehending deviance, often the investigatorfalters, comforting logic overwhelmed by true strangeness.Scenes of psycho-murder are the most difficult, with allgathering and analyzing futile initially, the design appearingonly in repetition, vanishing until a subsequent recurrence.

The corpse is vital, a dominant component of the pattern.The body originates both the crime and the investigation:it's the key signature to the piece. Motive is secondary,only a lesser component. Like a Brahms melody createdthrough the demands of harmony, the motive can actuallydistract from recognition, leading the investigator downcul-de-sacs, allowing the more productive trails to cool.The corpse here, indeed everything first noticed, seemedto fit seamlessly into the affair-gone-wrong husband-prime-suspecttelevision stage set of the Oxford hotel room. Thebody, that of a tanned and toned woman in her wealthythirties, was nude, tied spread eagle on the bed. A largeplume of dried blood shocked the cream colored wall: bothcarotid arteries had likely been severed.

"Detective."

"Detective."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighborhood."

"This is my case."

"I know that. Don't get nervous."

"I'm not nervous. Stay out of my way."

"If you need any help ..."

"I won't. Stay out of my way."

While he turned abruptly, almost tripping over a technician,I surreptitiously, without gloves, examined herclothes—a nice size four Armani jacket suit and matchingskirt—that were carefully folded and hung over the chair.He was right, it wasn't my case, and I was in the way. Buthe'd never acted like that to me before.

I stepped closer. The flesh was firm: she pilatied andwatched her diet. She undressed well, her skin was clear,limbs shaped and displayed for maximum effect. It hadn'tbeen enough: her killer had been unimpressed. He'd donenothing but cut her throat. He'd killed dispassionately, theknife slicing clinically, tissue parting and opening withoutresistance. She stretched out elegantly, too pampered to besomeone's woman kept. And didn't that pose, stiffening, indicateclearly that she was a willing participant, expectingnot dreading her partner's return?

"Leave. Now."

"The dick returns, abrasive."

"I don't want or need your help."

CHAPTER 2

Vier Liederop. 2

I. Erwartung

I closed my office door and opened the window blinds,letting the late afternoon April sun stream through. Thebright yellow light was stronger than I expected and Isquinted, shielding my eyes with my hand. Looking down atthe small entrance plaza, and then at the parking lot acrossthe street, I thought about all the work I had: a likely gangdrive-by and a relatively straightforward escalated barfight.The image of that woman at the Oxford—tanned limbsagainst the white of the sheets, the black blood dark againstthe cream colored wall—came to me and I began to feelsorry for her. I hadn't felt anything while I was there, savea mild interest in trying to uncover a pattern. But now, as Ithought of her splayed open, well, I hoped they didn't findme like that. No matter who or what she was, that was noway to go out. And Benderson's behavior nagged.

I heard a knock and turned.

Captain Schlaf, a large, well-built man, walked into myoffice and closed the door. Besides his block-like shape, thecaptain had two defining characteristics: he looked like heneeded to wear glasses, and he sported a huge green andred ring, big as a ping-pong ball, from his college footballteam. He was always working that fucking thing, twisting it,sliding it up and down his finger, moving his hand back andforth and admiring it from different focal distances.

"Fruscella, where are you in the Kinney case?"

"Confession imminent and, according to the DA, alikely plead to manslaughter."

"You going to send the drive-by to Gangs?"

"I want to check out a couple of things first."

He leaned forward and put his hands on the desk. Hisring caught the light and sparkled: green, red, green, like aChristmas disco ball.

"You recognize the stiff at the Oxford?"

"No."

"Does the name Magdalena Lowenthal ring any bells?"

The Lowenthals were a name in Southern Coloradowhen I was growing up: this was big. "No."

"Wife of state senator Augie Lowenthal? Best friend ofone Peter Coors? You have heard of Coors, right?"

"My best friend in high school was a Coors."

He stopped working his ring and looked me in theeye. "The woman you saw on the bed at the Oxford wasMagdalena Mary Lowenthal. This has priority, so I mightneed to take some of your team. Thought I'd let youknow."

He turned and walked out quickly. It wasn't every daythat a state senator's wife got herself kilt. An ambitious statesenator as well, a pro-life and anti-immigration rising starwith a smooth, dulcet voice, sweetening and stoking thesour shrill message of Caucasian resentment. He had a fewenemies, which meant there'd be a few suspects. And hehimself would be prime. But it wasn't my case.

II. Schenk mir Deinen goldenen Kamm

On April 2nd, 2009 at 14:30, I, officer Benny Guiterrez,was dispatched to the Oxford Hotel, 1600 17th Street, DenverCO in response to the discovery of a body in a roomof the hotel. When I arrived, I was met by a Mr. HenryLarsson, 3237 Umatilla Street, Denver DOB 6/26/65, theassistant manager of the hotel, and a Mr. James Harold, 572Race Street, Arvada DOB 8/6/57 desk clerk. Mr. Larssontold me that at approximately 2:10 pm, a Ms. Dolores Raez,of 1830 Sacramento Street Apt 1279 B DOB 2/13/78 PermanentResidence # 2398BZ459GZX23, maid, opened thedoor to clean the room, 242, and found the body. Ms. Raezimmediately ran down the stairs to inform Mr. Harold, whocalled 911. Mr. Harold then called Mr. Larsson, who wentto inspect the room. Mr. Larsson entered the room to ascertainif the victim still exhibited vitals and seeing that thevictim was deceased, he locked the door and returned to thedesk. He took Ms. Raez downstairs to the employees' roomto comfort her.

I went up to Room 242, accompanied by Mr. Larsson,who unlocked the door. I asked him if he knew the identityof the woman, and if he had seen or heard anything unusual.He responded that he had arrived on duty at six amand had not seen or heard anything unusual. I ascertainedthe victim was deceased, and as I did so, the paramedicsarrived. I called the station for backup and informed theCrimes Against Persons unit. I was ordered to secure thesite and wait for the detectives. Mr. Larsson then told methat the woman had registered under the name of MagdalenaDehmel of Colorado Springs, and that...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: F2C
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1573661759
• ISBN 13: 9781573661751
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 102
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland