Levels of Awareness

By Paul Robeson

ROY DeSILVA had everything - fame as a best-selling mystery writer, a loving and faithful wife and three beautiful daughters. One day it all came crashing down. His daughter is murdered, his wife ceases to talk and then she is murdered. Roy stops writing, obsessed with finding the killer.
Roy decides to take an observation/writing class to see if he can find something in a video tape his wife had taken. He meets another author, MORRISON MORRISON. Their advanced observation skills pair them in class and they get to know each other. Morrison's husband had died of a heart attack and eventually, Morrison and her daughter and Roy and Roy's children get together. On a visit to Roy's house, Morrison brings her pet with her - a venom spitting, midwife toad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Robeson
• Release date: Oct 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9780983560180

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson taught studio and stage arts in public schools in New Jersey and Maine. He produced a newspaper cartoon series and co-authored a newspaper series and book, while serving as Curator of Education at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. Robeson worked in television and motion picture production at Warner Bros., Columbia, and Universal Studios in Los Angeles. He also worked for the Office of the State Architect on the restoration of the Simon Rodia Towers in Watts, and the Will Rogers Home in Santa Monica, California. As a set designer, actor, and director, he helped lead the development of the Riverfront Playhouse community theatre in Redding. Robeson makes his home in Northern California with his wife Carol, their daughter and son-in-law and their three children. Their son lives in San Francisco and is following his own artistic dreams.

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Levels of Awareness

Published by Paul H. Robeson at Smashwords

Copyright 1992, 2012 Paul H. Robeson

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Lucian Synowski, A Detective Lieutenant with the Metro Police Department, first became aware of Roy DeSilva by reading his best-selling mystery novels. Synowski never dreamt he would meet him investigating the death of DeSilva’s daughter.

It was quite a shock for Roy DeSilva to be called away from a book signing party to find out his daughter was bludgeoned to death, and that his wife in a comatose mental state.

The Metro Police Department did an extensive investigation into the girl’s death. Searching the entire park where the girl was found, they turned up nothing – except for Roy’s wife’s camcorder. She had it with her that day, taking pictures of their three girls. Everyone looked at the tape but no one knew who or what they were looking for. The killer could be on the tape ...but no one could tell.

The police lab made several copies of the tape to see if anyone noticed anything different that might help. The lab computer enhanced some of the frames on the tape to see if we could find out anything. They checked out several ‘street people,’ even one who walked with a cane. A middle aged man in a dark gray overcoat and all the kid’s mothers that were there were checked. But, they found nothing.

Roy started going to a ‘Writing Awareness’ class at the local Community College to see if he could learn anything about viewing films, especially his wife’s last one. Roy wanted to increase his level of awareness.

The lights in the classroom came down as s screen in the front of the room lit up showing an exterior scene. It appears to be morning as the camera moves into a close up angle of a Bus Stop bench. A middle-aged man is sitting on the bench and there is a curb-side sign which has:

BUFFALO TRANSIT AUTHORITY

4TH STREET BUS STOPS HERE

EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR

The only sound coming from the speakers is street noise. The man looks down at his wristwatch. It reads: 9:40. An elderly man in a dark overcoat sits down next to him. The other man places his paper grocery bag between them and takes out a folded newspaper. The first man nods his head as the old man looks in his direction. The old man quickly looks off in the opposite direction and does not acknowledge the nod. The first man turns back and looks straight ahead.

Traffic is sparse and we hear an occasional car horn sound. Across the street we see the store windows and old building facades. Pigeons pace back and forth on the ornate ledge above the first floor. The pigeons look like they are doing a military march as they walk by each other moving their heads up and down.

A woman pushing an old-fashioned baby carriage enters the scene and pauses at one of the store windows across the street. The window display has a red elf mannequin holding up a child’s play suit. The sign above the store window has the name of an Infants Wear Shop. As the woman resumes her journey she suddenly jumps as if someone invisible has goosed her.

As she looks up to the third floor a man on a scaffold is washing windows. He drops water on her as he takes his dripping sponge out of his bucket. The woman shakes her fist and uttered some sort of obscenity to him. The window washer looks down and throws his middle finger at her and goes back to work.

The old man on the bench chuckle as he unfolds his newspaper and then refolds it so he could continue his reading. On the paper we see:

CHRISTMAS SALE

STARTS TOMORROW

TUESDAY THE 15TH

The old man tucks in his flannel scarf and adjusts a small pair of eyeglasses on his hook nose. The first man looks at his wristwatch and then adjusts his coat collar on his neck.

Two police officers in a patrol car move slowly down the street. There are not that many people on the street but they look at them as they pass them. The car almost comes to a stop as two black youths walk down the other side of the street. They have on leather jackets with their collars turned up around their necks. There was no guilt shown by the boys so the police car passes and then resumes normal slow speed. The officers continue to look out from the warmth of their vehicle and return a wave from a