Page 55 of Reading Between the Lines
“Mr. Abercrombie runs the school club. He allows anyone to participate, no matter what genre they write. It’s a lot more popular with the mystery thriller crowd, hence the name, but it’s all… regulated. He won’t teach the darker aspects of the genre and doesn’t promote us exploring it in our writing.”
“Keep talking in code, and I’ll pocket my twenty bucks and drive away.”
To me, Atlas said, “Your partner’s a real treat.”
“Buddy, you have no idea. How about you answer his questions more thoroughly because, at this point, if he tries to rip your head from your shoulders, there isn’t much a scrawny guy like me can do about it. At best, I can jump on his back and try to put him in a choke hold, but chances are I’ll slip in these shoes and embarrass myself. In the end, you’ll be dead, my pride will be hurt, and we’ll move on to someone else who will give us information.”
Atlas thumbed in my direction but spoke to Diem. “Is he for real?”
Diem growled and balled his fists.
“Oh, I’m for real, buddy, and I’d say you have thirty seconds before he snaps.”
Atlas chuckled and shook his head. “You guys are fucking weird.”
“Talk,” Diem spat.
“Do you read mysteries or thrillers?” Atlas asked.
“No.” Diem’s jaw pulsed with how hard he clenched his teeth.
“I read fashion magazines.”
Atlas huffed. “Not what I’m talking about. Every murder mystery involves a bad guy whose goal is to get away with a crime and a good guy who’s trying to catch him. The problem with most books in this genre is how unbelievable the author makes the story. They rely too heavily on the bad guy being an idiot or the good guy being a genius. Our goal is to make the stories as real as possible. To do that, we fully examine and dissect the criminal aspect as a group. We put ourselves in the role of the antagonist. We want to create a flawless crime that can’t be pinned on us. We brainstorm every aspect. We act it out. We challenge each other. We analyze anatomy, murderweapons, process, discuss evidence, alibis, and determine the potential for suspicion. Every flaw is fixed until we have the perfect crime. Only then do you have a true masterpiece of a story.” Atlas made a chef’s kiss motion.
Frowning, glancing between the teen and Diem, I said, “But, isn’t the point of a mystery novel for the good guy to solve the crime? You can’t write a story where the bad guy gets away with it. That makes no sense.”
Atlas chuckled. “That’s stage two. Once we have the perfect crime, we take the role of protagonist and find a way to solve it.”
“Your method is circular. At this rate, you’ll never have a story.”
Atlas shrugged. “It’s the process we love, and our stories surpass most of the trade pieces of shit out there. We use our heads. We truly think about every part.”
Diem drew a folded stack of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket. I recognized them as the ones he’d plucked from my hand earlier. Weston’s mysterious story depicting the incident by the river.
He handed it to Atlas. “Is this from your club?”
Atlas spent a second skimming the content and nodded with a huff of humor. “Yep. This one went around for a bit.”
“Who wrote it?”
Atlas thrust the papers back at Diem. “Couldn’t tell you.”
“Who. Wrote. It.” Diem spat each word with venom.
“I. Don’t. Know.” Atlas mimicked Diem’s manner of speech. “All stories in the Murder Club are anonymous. They are typed, not handwritten. Times New Roman. Font size twelve. They are put into a folder at the beginning of a meeting. We shuffle them and select one at random. After reading it aloud, we vote on its quality and if it’s worth working on. From there, if selected, it goes through many stages. This one was from a month or so ago.Everyone got a copy. Everyone did edits and made notes.” He indicated Weston’s scribbled comments in the margins.
“Who do youthinkwrote it?” Diem asked.
Atlas shrugged, his smug expression never faltering. “The point is anonymity. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
“Buddy,” I interjected before Diem could insert an opinion. “Someone took this story from fiction to nonfiction. I don’t believe for one second that your friend had an accident.”
The kid’s smirk made my skin crawl. “I don’t believe so either, but I don’t know who wrote it.”
“I’m not sure it matters,” Diem grumbled under his breath.
“D?”
