Gretchen Jaeger

I believe in Fate--that the universe has ways of saying: Stop. Reverse course. Equally, I hate being told what to do. The day didn’t start well: I overslept, poured sour milk over the last of my cereal, smashed my hand in the sliding door, and limped to a standstill on a flat tire I could not afford to fix. If not for my stubborn middle finger to Fate, I’d have taken a personal day before things got worse. Instead? Instead I found myself where I did not belong: standing just inside the threshold of a small hot bedroom saturated in blood. I’d transcribed police and witness statements describing crime scenes, everything from mummified remains to fresh brains transported separately in a box. But this was the first one I’d stood inside and I’d have thought the blood was fake if not for the smell. There was just too much of it, like an overdone haunted house on Halloween: walls, ceiling, pooled on the floor, soaked into the mattresses of the matching twin beds in which lay two women, both early- to mid-twenties, both dead between two and six hours. Detective Sergeant Brian Berger crouched beside the bed under the window. “We have IDs?” Sergeant Ron Croft flipped a page on his notepad. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I’d watched him try to make sense of me getting out of Berger’s SUV at that hour of the morning, a look that said I should have had the sense to wait inside. He’d centered himself on the threshold, trapping me in the bedroom, so I’d regret that decision. “Blond is Chloe Adams,” he read. “Redhead is Saoirse Quinn—” Berger looked up. “Say that again.” “SHEER-sha. It’s Irish. She’s from County Cork. Adams is from New Zealand. According to the surviving housemate, this room is used every year by international interns who come to town to work the wine grape harvest.” Chloe Adams had hair as pale blond as my own, but longer and straight as falling water. She lay on her side, uncovered, her sheets and duvet folded neatly against the wall. Her pajama top—once white with a blue toile pattern, now mostly deep reddish-brown—and matching shorts were undisturbed. If not for the fact that her throat had been so deeply slashed she’d been nearly decapitated, she might have been asleep. Saoirse was another story. Sheets wound around her legs, satin camisole—an unstained section showed it had been pale green, and matched her panties--hanging in ribbons. Her blood-smeared face was mostly obscured by a matted mass of wavy auburn hair. I glanced at her hands. Both were deeply lacerated and bloodstained—defensive wounds--whereas Chloe’s fingers and palms showed only the purplish tint of grape juice, stains that spoke of hot days picking grape berries, crushing them in Ziplocs...I’d worked a few harvests. I knew firsthand the grit behind the romance. Berger used gloved fingers to lift a pair of Gucci sunglasses from the nightstand, look them over, and put them back down. “If they came to work the harvest they’ve only been in town what, five, six weeks? Not much time to make enemies.” “Doesn’t take time these days,” countered Croft. “Entitled rich kids breeze into town, look down their noses, treat the local guys like dirt, everyone’s drinking, sooner or later someone’s gonna go off. Not blaming the victims,” he held up a hand, palm out, to negate the lie, “I’m just saying people have lim...” “Saoirse wasn’t rich,” I said. “Chloe was, but not Saoirse.” “...its.” Dumbfounded that I’d dared speak, Croft fell silent. Berger caught my eye. “What makes you say that?” “What they’re wearing. Saoirse’s satin camisole and panties—fancy style, but polyester satin and inexpensive construction.” “They’re harvest interns. Crush is dirty, sweaty work,” Berger said. “Everyone wears crappy old clothes.” “To work in, yes. Rich girls don’t sleep in them. See the label on the waistband of Chloe’s shorts? OVH stands for Olivia von Halle, a high-end brand. Looks like a cotton/silk blend. I’d guess that shorty set cost around four hundred bucks. Soairse’s...” I shrugged. Croft snorted. I could see Berger wondering if I could really identify fabrics like that, so I said, “Silk and cotton fibers are absorbent. Polyester isn’t. Liquids soak into natural fibers but wick along synthetics. You can see the different patterns at the edges of the, ah...the stains.” Croft said, “You do a lot of bleeding into different fabrics?” “A fair amount.” I always spoke carefully to Croft, few words, no inflection. I’d worked for the police department for six years, and he’d hated me from day one. I’d never figured out what I’d done or said to make him despise me, but he had power within the hierarchy, and I did not, so he was always trying to needle me into a spat we both knew he’d win. An iPhone chimed on the dresser. Berger picked it up and checked the screen. “Alarm’s gone intermittent,” he said. “Originally set for five-thirty.” He silenced the chime, reached around me and handed the phone to Croft, forcing him at last from the doorway to bag it. But I couldn’t move. Much as I wanted out of that room, I stood frozen, alert as any prey animal to a sense of ongoing threat. It had been there from the moment I set foot in this house: a low growl in tall grass, impossible to pinpoint. “This feel like rage to you?” Berger had spoken so quietly, and the question was so unexpected, I didn’t reply. As precinct Administrative Assistant, I was only at the scene because I’d gotten that flat tire on my way to work. Valley Brake and Tire had been winching my truck onto their flatbed when Berger happened by and offered me a lift. It was safe to say he hadn’t noticed me standing beside the road. He’d recognized my lime green 1977 Ford F-150. There could hardly be two in town.

1. Story statement: A twist of fate lands police administrative assistant Eva Brandt at the scene of a double murder, upending the safe life she has built since escaping the extremist sect led by her wealthy, charismatic father ten years ago. 2. The antagonist: Eva’s powerful father Walter Brandt is tired of having to secretly undermine Eva’s struggle to build a life outside his far-right sect, Tannenberg. He considers Eva--despite being female--the best equipped of his 3 children to take over leadership of the cult. Walter inherited control from his own father, and building a blood dynasty is of paramount importance to him, but his older son vanished and he considers his younger son inferior. Until now, Walter has considered Eva’s past disloyalty unforgivable, but her position just inside the murder investigation gives her opportunity to eliminate Walter’s enemy, Sergeant Ron Croft, a supposed member of Tannenberg who, Walter knows, is in fact working undercover, investigating the money laundering scheme Walter runs through wineries owned by primary murder suspect, dissolute inebriate Ken Furey. Walter plots to return Eva to his control, using every tool in his malignant narcissist’s playbook to gaslight and manipulate her into killing Croft while promising protection from consequences once she does. Playing on Eva’s internal struggle against her upbringing, he explains how and why Croft murdered the original two helpless, innocent victims and destroyed Eva’s life as part of the coverup. 3. Possible titles TANNENBERG THE JEWEL WASP TWO WOLVES 4. Comps: Psychological suspense When I began searching for comps (I confess to not having done this before now), these were the plot/theme elements I looked for: - the corrosive influence of a charismatic/narcissistic “leader” - a protagonist struggling against past secrets/shames that play upon the present - questions of conscience, ethics, and morality...and an antagonist who makes a seductive case against them - a beautiful but changing setting that belies ugliness/evil beneath the surface and where disparate worlds/people collide Most of the books/articles/studies I’ve read that tick the majority of these boxes (except the last one) are nonfiction. While obviously I would not compare myself to these writers, these novels come to mind: 1. THE GOD OF THE WOODS by Liz Moore 2. THE SILENT PATIENT by Alex Michaelides 3. THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt (After beginning this exercise, I found this title as an example in the materials sent to us, so I went for two more. But I’d still consider this a comp, a “crime novel” in which solving the crime is not the primary focus) 5. Logline Police administrative assistant Eva Brandt strives to help solve a double murder in California wine country, despite every clue forcing her back into the clutches of her dangerous father and the powerful cult of fear, lies, and paranoia he has built. 6. Two levels of conflict: (apologies if you intended that we simply summarize the scenes—I tried to keep them short) A. Inner conflict. In this scene, we first see Eva’s struggle to free herself from her past, in the moment she discovers the murder weapon: I started down the vine row closest to the house. After about ten yards, I stopped. It took me a moment to register the knife embedded in the trunk of an ancient grapevine--the dried blood smeared across the smooth metal shaft was the same color as the bark. “Sir?” The word caught in my throat. It wasn’t just any knife. I’d learned to use one like it, years ago. It carried a feeling, long-forgotten: the warm sense of safety, of belonging, I’d felt as a child when first shown the secret cache of lethal weapons at Tannenberg. Staring at that bloody hilt jutting from gnarled wood, I was eight years old again, my father’s arms wrapped around me from behind. Hold it like this. Now, if you release the latch that keeps the knife pressed against the compressed coil... ...the blade would rocket at 40mph toward any threat within twenty feet. Ballistic knives were nothing more than a hollow handle inside an exterior grip and a mechanism--compressed air, a CO2 capsule, or a spring—that shot the blade out of the grip like a bullet. They had been illegal in California since the 1980s, and their banned status meant a certain subset of the population took special pride in owning them--a subset I knew well, into which I’d been born. Little Eva Brandt: pale blond hair, eyes a slightly disappointing leaf green rather than a clear sky blue, skin so white rushing blood vessels betrayed every fear, every secret shame. Named for the woman who stayed loyal to Hitler unto death. “Sir!” Berger turned. Croft did, too. At first, they both looked annoyed at the interruption, but I guess my face said enough. The next thing I knew, they were beside me. B. Secondary conflict: Eva’s struggle to make friends—to trust others (in this case, and at this point unknown to her, with the actual murderer): [Dierdre] said, with a new sparkle in her eye, “I wonder if all gay couples are as fussy as Nick and Terry. They’re very proud of their hollyhocks.” We’d reached her car. “I’m sure there are as many types of gay couples as there are straight couples.” I deflated as the sparkle left her eye. Christ almighty, this was why I couldn’t make friends. I hadn’t meant to sound judgmental. She reached for the door. “Sorry. Obviously, there are. That was my upbringing talking. God, I hate it when I sound like my father.” “Couldn’t be as bad as when I sound like mine.” She paused, her hand on the handle of her Escalade, and said, “The truth is, I feel guilty about Heather. I mean, innocence dies. That happens to all of us, but I tried to keep certain things from her, and I think she’s known about Ken’s affairs all along. That’s why it’s so hard for her to grow up. She never experienced the innocence of childhood, so she keeps trying to go back, reconcile everything in her head and her heart, start over.” “Don’t we all.” She pulled the door open. “I shouldn’t have made that joke about Nick and Terry. It was cheap. I appreciate you calling me on it. That’s what friends do. Make each other better.” And then she gave me a hug. A quick, unthinking hug, the sort of embrace I imagined was common between normal people, but it was all I could do to lift an arm, reciprocate, not stand there like I was carved from marble. She threw me a smile and a wave as she drove off, and I sunk to a seat against the stone wall as the sun went down, nursing my wine, letting the heat from the last sunrays soak into my face. The world felt peaceful all of a sudden, hushed under a sky like melted rainbow sherbet. I skipped dinner and fell asleep early to the smell of leather and chestnut, hints of maple and cayenne. My grandfather’s tobacco. He would not have blamed me for my mother’s death. I felt so sure of it, I slept well for the first time in memory. 7. The setting—Sonoma County, California I wanted a physically beautiful setting, one that might lull the reader a bit, provide a hint of peace, when in reality there is a strong “outsider” (murder victims Chloe Adams and Saoirse Quinn) vs “insider” (Eva, Croft, Detective Berger) dynamic in an area unusual for the fact that among insiders, the very wealthy and the very poor interact on a personal level. There is also a large immigrant vineyard worker population, providing scapegoats (Luis Delgado, murder suspect #2) for those who might be looking for such (Croft?). For the same reasons, the Tannenberg compound is depicted as an idyllic five-star spa, not Ruby Ridge.