In The Attic, Based On True Crime – Book 1
By Garry Rodgers
“I’m so terrified… that psycho’s going to kill me.” Maria Dersch trembled like it was twenty below.
“What’s his name again?” I clicked my pen. Maria sat across the plain, metal desk. We were in a small police interview room with no windows or distractions on the walls.
“Shaughnessy.” Maria swallowed. “William…Raymond…Shaughnessy.” She double swallowed. “But he goes by Billy Ray.”
I’ll never forget Maria’s anguish—her voice hesitant, like a condemned woman stepping up to the guillotine…knowing what waited for her above.
Maria said it again. “I’m so terrified… that psycho’s going to kill me.”
Yeah, yeah. Heard this before.
As a cop near retirement, I don’t know how many times I heard that line. “He’s gonna kill me. Or, “I’m gonna kill you.”
It’s always exaggerated. They usually bring this shit on themselves.
But this was one time—the only time—in my homicide investigation career where I heard it right from a real victim. Or someone about to be a real homicide victim, that is.
“Okay, Maria. I need a statement from you and I’m going to record it.” I pointed at the mic.
She nodded, wiped her nose, and whispered. “Okay.”
“And I need you to speak up so it can be transcribed.”
Maria Dersch nodded again. She’d come to the police station for a restraining order against Billy Ray Shaughnessy—a man I’d soon spend hours within this same little room. A uniformed officer took the start of Maria’s complaint but, hearing the severity of violence in what she said, immediately called for a plainclothes investigator from the Serious Crimes Section to take over. I’m the poor bastard who got handed the file.
“Where’d this happen?”
“Up on Machleary Street. Four six nine Machleary. Like, three blocks away. At the dead end.”
“Here in Nanaimo, right? I just want that clear for the record.”
Genre: Thriller
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Garry Rodgers
Garry Rodgers is a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police serious crimes detective who went on to a second stint doing sudden and unexplained death investigations for the Province of British Columbia Coroners Service.
Biography.
In his younger years, Garry served as a marksman (sniper) on British Special Air Services (SAS) trained RCMP Emergency Response Teams. He’s also a recognized expert witness in Canadian courts on the identification and operation of firearms.
In his third reincarnation, Garry Rodgers made #5 bragging rights on the Amazon Best Seller list, sandwiched between the names Stephen King and Dean Koontz with his debut crime thriller No Witnesses To Nothing. It’s based on a true story where many believe paranormal intervention occurred. At the moment, Garry is working on a 12-part series based on true crime cases he was involved in. So far, these are In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, Beside The Road, On The Floor, Between The Bikers, and Beyond The Limits. At The Cabin is a work in progress. For 2022, watch for Garry’s new City Of Danger series.
Garry hosts a popular blog at www.DyingWords.net that gets over a quarter-million visits each year. The tagline provokes thoughts on life, death, and writing. There are 400+ posts ranging from rants on bureaucratic stupidity to analyzing high-profile death cases. He also blogs at the HuffPost and does ghost-written op-eds. Recently, The Kill Zone gang invited Garry as a regular contributor. And…. PostMortemPod is in the works.
A few non-fictional facts about Garry Rodgers…
~He grew up around the drag strip and was an NHRA C-SuperMod racer.
~He also raced snowmobiles (sleds) for Mercury Marine on the SnoPro circuit.
~He won a mechanical bull riding competition — stayed on 8 seconds at level 8.
~He was struck by lightning and survived to talk about it (that sucked).
~He was bitten by a venomous brown recluse spider while he was innocently writing a book.
~He was thoroughly humiliated by having to karaoke sing You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog.
~He almost killed Neil Young, the rocker. The story goes that Neil was flying over a tree-lined hill crest on his bicycle and Garry nearly bug-squashed him with his Ford Explorer. According to Garry and Neil, it was a close call. Close.
Outside of crime writing, criminal investigation, and forensic science, Garry Rodgers is an old boat skipper. He went to school and took Transport Canada courses, and exams, and provided sea time to get his 60-tonne Marine Captain ticket. Garry says, “I’m good to go (from a legal point) to run tugs, seiners, small ferries, and luxury yachts. However, outside of operating a few touristy whale-watching boats, I don’t drive watercraft commercially. I just love spending time around the Pacific saltwater near my home in Nanaimo on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island on Canada’s beautiful west coast.”
Garry Rodgers
