I was driving, and still the story on the radio made me shiver. A body had been found murdered in a shack on the bank of the Penobscot River in Bangor, Maine. The shack was frequented by homeless people. The body was that of a young woman. Her name was Holly. She was 19.
The story ended; I was almost home. I went to the Bangor Daily News online. I shivered again.
I wrote a mystery novel called Home Body, published in 2004. It was about street kids in Portland and Bangor, including a teenage girl named Tammy. She hung around the shelters, befriended a younger boy named Rocky. Tammy tried to warn Rocky about the perils of the street, including an older guy named Crow Man who preyed on the kids. Crow Man liked to drink down by the Penobscot River, under the Veterans’ Remembrance Bridge. I wrote a fight scene down there: Crow Man vs. Jack McMorrow, my series hero. McMorrow won that round. He couldn’t save Tammy. She was stabbed to death.
Back in real life, the murder victim this week was Holly Boutilier. She was from Old Town, near Bangor, was known to area places that serve the homeless, according to the newspaper. The paper published Holly’s photo from her Facebook page. She looks sweet, a little artsy, with dark-rimmed glasses and hair piled up on her head. Her obituary says she liked animals.
Cops arrested a guy they said was Holly’s killer. His name is Colin Koehler, not Crow Man. He’s 34. Cops had to tear-gas his apartment in Bangor to get him to give up. They questioned him for four hours before they charged him with murder. In his photo, he looks big, shaved head growing out. Resigned to his fate.
The reporters in Bangor did a good job. They went to the arrest scene. They went to the shack down by the bridge, where the body was found, and reported they saw discarded evidence tags and a spot of blood. The shack is filled with dirty blankets and clothes. A homeless woman reportedly lived there but she’s not around.
In coming days, the newspaper and TV news will report more about Holly and Koehler. They’ll tell us how their paths may have intersected. Were they acquaintances? Was it a crime of opportunity? How did she die? Who were her friends?
It will all come out, just as it does in the book. Reporters on the story. McMorrow pausing to ponder: “Nothing moved under the parking lot lights. Nothing showed against the glow of the city, across the harbor. The bridge lights glowed red in the sky like the lights of motionless airplanes. I watched for a few minutes, eyes narrowed, looking for some clue in the blackness, some reason for a girl’s life to end in this lonely way. …”
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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