THE ELLIOT LAKE SERIES
Elliot Lake thinks he’s dropped out of life, chosen the slow path, but life is just getting to ride his ass.
And what a ride it will be.
Reporter, introvert, part-time slob, fan of good music and cheap beer, Elliot grew up in the affluent neighborhood of Seattle’s Madison Park with his domineering Chinese mother, passive Caucasian father, and spoiled-rotten sister Princess Maggie Morning Star. At 30 he left his ran screaming for the Oregon Coast, where he’s spent his days (barely) working at the Alder Bay Examiner and his nights avoiding commitment. Everything is about to change.
TITLES IN THE ELLIOT LAKE SERIES:
STOLEN SPRING
DROWNING SUMMER
FALL OF THE COVE
WINTER OF REVEAL
Armed with only the intuition of the beautiful violet-eyed earth muffin named Sky and then ramblings of the local mumbling man, Elliot Lake solves the mystery while fighting his feelings for the very married Sky.
Just another day on the Oregon Coast.
STATUS: in revisions, stands at 77,000 words, possibly a cozy.
EXCERPT -- FIRST FIVE PAGES:
Ass, meet chair.
My name is Elliot Lake, and I work for the Alder Bay Examiner, a weekly paper covering our county's news. You will never find anything about New York City, Washington D.C., or international events in our paper, unless someone actually makes it out of Alder Bay and steps foot on a plane, which immediately results in a front-page story, complete with several photos and a jump to another page in the middle somewhere.
Think of the ads we can sell when that happens.
But we have to fill the paper with something, and it might as well be pictures of the Alder Bay Dairy Queen at a rodeo in Texas holding an armful of yellow roses. Yee-haw!
At the Examiner, you can find my desk by looking for what doesn't look like a desk but more like a giant snowball of paper.
I had a system once, but I’ve been working at this paper for nearly ten years, and honestly, there isn't that much new news happening. My phone numbers are in my head, right next to my cerebral filing cabinet full of past stories I want to remember, so really, my desk is a mess because I am too lazy to shove it all into the trash.
Our tiny newspaper has a tiny office to go with it. Forget having my own office. I’m lucky to have my own desk. Instead, our little bull pen is right in the middle of the room, right between the sales staff and the production team.
Everyone can hear you eat, drink, talk on the phone, everything. And you hear them. Really annoying. Especially Frank in production who likes to swear when stressed. “Fuck me up one side and down the other!” is his current favorite.
I broke down a few years back and invested in a laptop, which has made my life so much easier. It was worth every penny, because my laptop frees me from my desk chair I hate so much.
I hate my chair because the second I sit down, I know invisible shackles will shoot up from the bottom somewhere and strap me down. There I’ll sit, trapped, waiting for the ceiling to cave in.
It's hard to breathe. I hear someone in the office say my name and I want to hide. I don't want small talk. I don't want to answer any questions or sign another goddamn office birthday card. And you can keep your stinking Girl Scout Cookies, booster club chocolate bars, candles and whatever else the local kids are being forced to sell this month.
I don't hate my job, really I don't. Or anyone at my job. I just sort of hate being at my job. Maybe that doesn't make any sense. After four decades on this planet, I have lost track of what's normal.
I now basically go to the office once or twice a day to check in, see if I have any messages, and let my editor remember what I look like. Like he's ever at work anyway. We’re pretty sure he has a girlfriend or another job down south, because he often disappears for hours at a time, and no one can figure out where he's going.
He must hate his chair, too.
When I am at work, I stick to my short routine. First, I check my messages. There are three this morning. The first is a thanks y’all from the dairy queen for my feature story on her trip to Texas.
Next, Sheriff Jack Reynolds called two minutes after I left his office that morning to tell me another cow escaped and a S.W.A.T. team from Portland has been called to get the stupid thing back in her pasture. Ha ha. What a funny guy.
Third message. What the...Rose? “Hey Babe. I was wondering if you had heard about that missing kid down in Harmony? It's all the talk at the Sand Dollar this morning. He has family here, so it is sort of a local tie-in, plus I guess our Coast Guard was called to aid in the search? Just a little tip for you. I'll see ya tonight.”
Missing kid? Not good. I called Jack but Renee said he’d already headed south to aid in the search. “Thanks, Renee. I'll get him on his cell.”
I left a message for Jack, and was packing up my bag when my editor showed up. Mike Stephens is a little guy, or at least smaller than my five-foot, ten-inch frame, but he’s old and gray before his time, poor bastard. I think we might even be close in age. Scary thought.
“Hey, Mike, have you heard about a missing kid in Harmony?”
“Oh, I haven't heard anything about that.”
Gee, I'm shocked. That’s when the phones started ringing off the hook in the front office.
Another problem with small towns: everyone and their grandmother has their own police scanner.
We’re the goddamn newspaper, but our scanner is usually turned down because Mike doesn’t like listening to the squawking when he’s in the office. I am so used to it being turned down, I forget it's there, but when something big like this breaks, it would be nice to know what the hell is going on.
“Sheriff's on line two for you, Elliot.”
“Got it, Sherry, thanks,” I picked up my extension. “Lake here. Speak.”
“Hey. Missing kid, family was hiking on the bluffs. Subject is a three-year-old male, Luke Hansen, and he disappeared this morning, around eight thirty a.m.”
“The bluffs? Jesus, that's a hundred-foot drop depending on where they were.”
“Yep. If you are coming down, look for the staging area at the main parking lot for the trail head to Eagle Beach, just south of Harmony.”
“On my way.” I hung up with Jack, pausing only long enough to call Rose at work. “I'm going down to Harmony to follow up on the missing kid, Rose, and I don't know when I'll be back tonight.”
“No worries, Lake.” I could tell she was juggling about three other things while talking to me because a blender was making some god-awful racket, someone called her name, and the cash register rung up a sale. “Just give me a call later and let me know where you're at.”
“No problem. See you.” I hung up and walked back to my truck I had left parked sort-of illegally near Bella’s Coffeeshop. I popped onto the highway behind a dairy truck and headed south.
There’s one thing you have to understand about the Oregon Coast. There is one road -- Highway 101. Everything is measured by its proximity to 101, and hardly anything survives very far off of 101.
The tourist trade up and down Highway 101 keeps the Oregon Coast alive during the busy season, and then Highway 101 spends its off-months being lovingly stroked to death with new asphalt by the relentless crew at the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Truthfully, the only thing preventing Highway 101 from flying off into space at this point are the multitude of travel trailers, fifth-wheels, ATV trailers, and motor homes driving over it every single day of the year.
It's mind-boggling how much money people spend in order to try and have fun. Isn't the beach still the beach whether you're sitting in a beat-up Ford or a three-hundred-thousand-dollar motor home? I don't get it.
I cruised down the highway, settling in for the drive to Harmony, a small harbor town about an hour south of Alder Bay. The main attractions in Harmony are the endless hiking trails along the bluffs, and it looks like the hiking trails of Harmony may have claimed another life.
