Horton Deakins's Blog, page 28

An Eastern-Oklahoma Murder Mystery

I've decided to share some of my short stories with you directly in my blog.  The first one is called "A lesson in Drowning," and this is the first time I've published it anywhere.

I'll be posting these stories in installments–not all at once.  Here is the first installment.

A Lesson in Drowning

© 2011 by Horton Deakins

 

        "Dad, why do you think they call this 'No Head Hollow'?" The boy pounded the water and slapped the resulting splash toward his father.

        "Keep that up, sonny boy, and you may find out," the boy's father, replied, as he swung his open palms across the surface of the stream and executed his river-water retaliation.

        "Dad, wait."

        "No prisoners — no quarter!"

        The boy pointed upriver. "No, look, Dad. Someone's floating in the water. They're coming this way."

        The boy's father broke off his counterattack to take a closer look. He saw a man clinging to woman with one arm and to a makeshift raft of life jackets with the other.

        "Are you okay?" Dan shouted. "Hey, are you okay?"

        The man floating in the river raised his head slightly and moaned, "Help! Please help. My wife — I don't think she's breathing."

        The river was not too terribly deep where father and son were playing together, and as the floating pair passed, they were able to get close enough to them to snag their makeshift raft.

        The woman indeed appeared lifeless. "What happened to you?" the taller of the two rescuers asked.

       "My name's Michael, Michael D'Angelo. And this is my wife, Tina. Oh, God, can you help her?" he sobbed.

       "Michael, I'm Dan. I'm going to see if I can't get her breathing again. Son, go get your cell phone and call nine-one-one."

       Dan tried in vain to resuscitate Tina, and then he started chest compressions. After about three minutes, he gave up. "I'm sorry, Michael. I think she's gone."

       Michael knelt in the river rock where his wife lay and hugged her tightly, rocking back and forth and wailing. "Tina, oh God, Tina, Tina, no, no, no, Tina … you can't be gone … no!"

       The boy came running back with his phone.  "Dad, they said the sheriff was nearby and he would come. I didn't tell them she might be dead." The boy noticed the pallor on the woman's face and her husband's distress. "She's dead, isn't she?"

       "I'm afraid so, son. Why don't you go back up to the car, okay?"

       In about ten minutes a sheriff's car bearing Cherokee County markings rolled up, and a uniformed law enforcement officer came running up to the lifeless body.

       "It's too late," Dan said.

       The sheriff turned on his personal radio. "This is Sheriff Gray. I'm down at No Head Hollow and I'm going to need an ambulance."

       "Sheriff, I'm Dan Fremont. I pulled the woman and her husband out of the water."

       "Cyril Gray. Were they swimming?" He looked at Michael. "Sir, were you trying to swim in the river?"

       Michael was too distraught to respond.

       "Sheriff Gray," Dan said, "the man's name is Michael D'Angelo. He said his wife's name was Tina. They came down the river with life jackets, but they weren't wearing them." Dan pointed to the pile of personal flotation devices. "Over there."

       "I'm going to need to get a statement from you, Mr. Fremont, so don't go anywhere."

       Sheriff Gray gave Michael a few moments to collect himself, and then said, "Sir, do you feel like answering a few questions? There's an ambulance coming, and I'd like to try to make some sense out of all this before it arrives."

       Michael wiped his eyes and nose, coughed a few times, and nodded.

       "All right. The other man said your name was Michael. Is that right? And this is your wife, and her name is Tina?"

       Michael nodded again.

       "Whereabouts did you get into the river? How far upstream?"

       Michael looked up at the sheriff. "I don't know how far, it had to be a long ways. It was Comb's Bridge. We dove off."

       "Mister, that was a foolish thing to do, and I think you know that. What possessed you to dive off that bridge with all the warnings about people dying or getting paralyzed?"

       Michael sighed and buried his face in his hands. "We were celebrating our tenth anniversary. We partied back in Oklahoma City last night, but we wanted to make it special. We dove off that bridge the day we got engaged and thought we would relive the moment. The plan was to toss the jackets off the upstream side of the bridge and then meet up with them after we dove off the downstream side." He started to cry again. "I don't know what happened. After she surfaced, she never moved again."

————————–   End of installment #1 —————————————

Where there's more smoke, there's another fire

The fire on the northeast side of Oklahoma City rekindled today, threatening more homes.  Yesterday it claimed thirty-three homes as well as a number of barns and other structures.  Today there was another wildfire on the southeast side of town, and the home of a friend of mine lies within the evacuation zone.

Below are a few photos of smoke from today's northeast-side fire as viewed from I-35.

Near NE 36th street

At NE 63rd street exit

I-35 northbound

At Hefner Road exit

3rd Annual Arcadia Lake Cardboard Boat Regatta

Here's the pics I promised from the 2011 cardboard boat races at Arcadia Lake.  I'll start off with a YouTube video I took with my cell phone and edited just a bit.

2011 3rd Annual Edmond Arcadia Lake Cardboard Boat Regatta

Now for the still photos:

The crew all had shirts that read, "McHale's Navy"

I think they intended to mount the "Croc" head on the pontoons

Sir Sinks a Lot

These appear to belong in the air rather than on the water

Bloody Vikings! Spam, spam, spam, spam ...

This one tended to leak fuel, but only above mach 2

Look! It's Wilson, and a FedEx box!

This one ended up in the dumpster as a soggy pile of cardboard

The two-person kayak-style boats were some of the fastest

You can tell what this guy's favorite sport is, and it's not boating!

Looked like a good idea, but it fell apart as soon as it hit the water.

Unless I'm mistaken, this was Park & Rec's entry.

Yabba-dabba-doo!

 

Never saw this one get wet

Must belong to Goldfinger

The only part of the Crocness Monster that went afloat

The crowd

This is too weird--ejection seat, Goldfinger, and guess what's on the TV right now?

The starting line

PT73 was by far the best-built boat. It held 5 or 6 adult paddlers and was fast.

I think they could have floated a VW Bug on the Crocness Monster.

PT73 after the race, apparently none the worse for wear

Improving the Web Page Feng Shui

Not much to say tonight, but if you check out my Website www.hortondeakins.com , you'll notice the alignment is much improved, and the links associated with the icons for my short stories, the very links that I broke when I changed my dropdown menus to use jQuery, these links now work.  I also fixed the dropdown menus and icon links on the page where you can access my trailer.

Tomorrow I hope to post photos (and maybe videos) of a fun event that took place today at Arcadia Lake in Edmond, Oklahoma: The Cardboard Boat Regatta.

Before the quake, before the tsunami

Yes, I know all these photos are from the Tokyo area, which is a long way from Sendai, but they portray peaceful scenes that reflect Japan before this latest disaster.  I can't take credit for these five shots, as they were taken by a friend of mine who has been to Japan more recently than have I. 

In the third photo, notice the little strips of paper attached to the wires in front of what look like little mail boxes.  These are o-mikuji, or fortunes.  The price is 100 yen.  You deposit your coin, take a fortune from a drawer, and if it is good and not a curse, you can take it, or you can tie it there to increase the fortune.  If it is bad, you can tie it there to make it "wait." Nowadays, I understand this self-serve system has been partially replaced by vending machines.

Sometime soon I hope to digitize some of the many negatives I have from the more than one year I spent in northern Japan and share those with you.  That was more than two decades ago.  For now, enjoy these photos, dozo.

Harley any I had seen before

Here's a few of the Harleys and other antique motorcycles that were on display at the Reagan Library.  I believe most of them were a temporary display.  Also in the photos are Air Force One and Marine One, plus a glimpse of some cycles used in movies.

Not your great-granfather's bicycle

Saying goodbye to an old friend

Yesterday I said goodbye to an old friend with whom I played in a Chicago-style band 35 years ago.  He had touched many people's lives since then, as evidenced by the 250-300 people in attendance at his memorial service.  There was no burial, as his family could not afford it, so he was cremated.  He was a very talented and versatile musician, and could play almost any instrument.  He was especially good on the guitar, trumpet, and drums.  He almost always went by his nickname: Bopper.

I have no photos of my friend to share, but I'll start by showing some views of the cemetery in Zermatt, Switzerland, near the Matterhorn.

Zermatt Cemetery

Following are assorted scenes from Zermatt

Matterhorn over the meadow

Classic Swiss dwelling

Parade day

 

A Swiss toilet. Jokes come to mind, but they're full of holes.

Quaint architecture, with Matterhorn in background




Wonder how long it would take to do this with a pocket knife?






Schmuck

Look closly at the Marcopolo sign.  It has "jewelry" in three languages.  Bet you didn't know it was "schmuck" in German, eh?

Announcing a book signing

Come join me and seven other authors at the Full Circle Bookstore this Saturday, August 20, for the New Ink book signing.  The event takes place from 3 pm until 5 pm.

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Authors attending, and their books:

Horton Deakins, Time Pullers
Terry Ross, The Galapagos Islands
G. Brent Riggs, Terrorist to Evangelist
Heather Whittman Caffey, The Almost True Adventures of Coonie Raccoon
Kris Schinske, The Stinky Chair
Marc Hardage, The Knock
Carolyn Long Marel, Come On In!
Dixie Miller Stewart, Charlie's Mark

If you're not familiar with Full Circle, it's across the street from Penn Square Mall at 50 Penn Place, on the northeast corner of the building.  They carry a number of books written by Oklahoma authors, alerting the browser to their locations on the shelves with little cards. They also have The Garden Café, where you can get (and I quote) soups, salads, sandwiches and sweets, not to mention coffee and adult beverages.

Hope to see you there!



Down in the valley, valley so low …

Here's the additional photos I promised from our helicopter ride over Kauai.  The first is a cascading waterfall, and the second is just a close up view of the same shot.  As for the rest, I'll let them speak for themselves.  They are all valleys and shoreline at and near the Na Pali Coast.  Enjoy.

Waterfall on Kauai

Close-up of waterfall

On the way back to terra firma

Na Pali want a cracker?

Our ride to the Na Pali Coast and Waimea Canyon

Yes, we really did get into this contraption–with no doors–along with the pilot and another couple.  My headphones kept sliding off,and I had a still camera in one hand and a video camera in the other.  Unfortunately, when I set the video to fixed-focus, I focused it at about two feet and ruined the entire video.

View of the Na Pali Coast

Ladies and gentlemen, in the event of a water landing … well … just hold your nose and hope for the best!

I'll post a few more photos of our Hawaiian helicopter experience tomorrow.