Friday Fictioneers is a weekly blog link-up led by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields at Addicted to Purple. The Challenge – write a one hundred word (plus or minus) story with a beginning, middle, and end inspired by the picture*. The Key – make every word count.
The picture is worth a thousand words. Below are my one hundred.
Image © Claire Fuller
Sentencing
“It looks like more in person than it does on paper,” said Michael Johns. He stared at vaults of evidence.
Detective Frank McCann remembered the paperwork. “No, it doesn’t.”
McCann flashed through the day they found the floral graveyard, the media naming the serial killer “The Florist,” his partner Michael Johns leaving for a civilian position as a security analyst. He remembered three years of investigations, fifteen bodies, five more, then another three. All eventually identified. A month later, Tom Armstrong admitted to twelve years of murder.
“Armstrong pled guilty,” said Johns. “Why am I here?”
“Because you were there.”
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100 words. Fiction. Feedback is always appreciated. Other Frank McCann stories include, They Called Him “The Florist”, In His Father’s Footsteps, and The Brass. This one goes sometime between “The Florist” and “Footsteps.”
Click below to read other creative contributions to this week’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt.
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I have found another audience for these drabbles. Did you know that’s what 100-word stories are called? Me neither, until about two weeks ago when I was introduced to drablr: a site dedicated to 100 word stories. It’s a chance to revise and share with another audience. Now you know.
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Every once in a while I put up a please donate if you are so inclined sentence (or three). When I do, it’s because I care about the person who is asking and admire their strength for asking. Shawn can’t talk, or breath very well, thanks to cancer, and that makes it hard to work. If you can, please consider giving to Shawn. If you can’t, please consider sharing because maybe somebody can.
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The ads (which may appear) below are not mine, but they keep this free for me. Do with them as you choose.
This Is My Corn 
Hmmm, is that what those things are in the picture – evidence vaults? I’ve never seen mechanisms like that before. They look like freezers. Cool piece Mel – it is seldom someone shows me something that I’ve never before seen.
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After I wrote mine I read Claire’s piece. These hold the books and other documents in the collection at the library where her husband works. So, a kind of evidence vault. 😉
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As guilty as hell. Plenty of evidence stored there. Great names you’ve used.
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This is the forth story with these characters. In one, Armstrong has already been executed.
Thanks about the names. They took some thought to find the right ones.
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That’s a lot of evidence! (Does ‘plead’ need to be ‘pleaded’?)
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Or ‘pled’. 🙂
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Or ‘pled’. 🙂
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Oh! Thanks for the catch. It does need to be ‘pleaded’.
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He was there? Leaving finger prints?
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No, not fingerprints. Johns & McCann were partners when the investigation started.
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I’m also confused — is it because I haven’t read the other installments? I took the last line to mean Johns was the real killer, but then there’s nothing else to indicate that. So, in the other installments?).
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I intended this to stand alone as its own piece without the other installments, so that it doesn’t is my fault as a writer. I was hoping the line “his partner Michael Johns leaving for a civilian position as a security analyst” would show that McCann and Johns were partners when the case of The Florist started and that Johns is there as a witness to the initial discovery of The Florist’s victims.
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That did come across! I was just reading more into it.
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You weren’t entirely wrong with your deeper reading. I think the larger story, i.e. the novel to be in-progress, will have Johns as The Florist’s “long lost” son who takes over the family business after Dad is caught. 🙂
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And the Florist returns! I like to see you continuing and developing this, Melanie. It sounds like Johns wants none of it. Nice character development.
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Thanks Amy! I like the challenge of continuing this story, while trying to make sure it stands alone and staying true to the rest of the pieces.
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Intriguing.
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Thanks!
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