The Blood Red Teardrop

By Ilze Berzins

Based on a true-life Colby College sex scandal, The Blood Red Teardrop walks a fine line between fact, fiction, and fantasy.
Izzie Pedersen is a writer. She writes because she must, not because she wants to. Its a tough life: lots of drinking, two hour days, money issues, and killers loitering around, determined to put an end to Izzie and the blockbuster shes hard at work on.
Moving to her new home in Waterville, Maine, with her husband Nick and dog Laachuk, Izzie becomes entangled in a sordid tale which threatens her life and the life of those she loves. Interspersed are her poignant memories of Paris, where she spent part of her youth, and flashbacks to Ottawa, which she doesnt miss for a second. And hanging over her is the specter of a cunning killer who is determined to kill again.
The Blood Red Teardrop, the latest thriller by prolific mystery writer Ilze Berzins, is an engaging, adventurous, and suspense-filled tale that you wont be able to put down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468587739

Ilze Berzins

Ilze Berzins, author and animal lover, lives in Water-ville, Maine with her husband and pets. She was born in Latvia, became a Canadian citizen, and has traveled widely. Her love for her ‘spiritual home’ of Paris is reflected in the pages of The Blood Red Teardrop. Trained as an artist and art educator, Ilze Berzins be-gan writing after her year-long sojourn in Latvia in 1995. Since then she has authored ten novels and two non-fiction works: Happy Girl and Portrait of a Latvian Beauty.

Book preview

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Chapter 1

There’s tension in the air all right. But this time I feel something more than ordinary jitters. Something crazy is going to happen. I just know it.

The packed courtroom is so still you can almost hear the clock ticking. On the stand is star witness Barbara Gardner, wife of the accused.

I watch her being sworn in and wonder how she can possibly be handling the attention she’s now getting. Smallish, dressed in beige, mousey brown hair—she’s not the kind of woman that makes heads turn. I’d say she’s probably in her late thirties, though it’s hard to say. But one thing’s for sure. Today she’s very, very nervous.

During the trial I’d catch her sneaking the odd peek at her husband. Then she’d turn her head away quickly. She must have been terribly humiliated. Who wouldn’t be if their husband had been caught planting cameras in girls’ bathrooms?

Fidgeting with the string of pearls around her neck, Barbara Gardner takes a deep breath.

The moment has come. She’s about to give evidence.

We’re all expecting a bombshell.

But will she deliver?

I…ah… she start—then goes wide-eyed.

She’s staring straight ahead at the woman in the third row who has leapt to her feet. It’s realtor Amber Arsenault. Amber is wearing a form-fitting navy suit with a simple white blouse under the jacket and holding a gun to her head, ready to blow her brains out.

I can’t believe my eyes. Where’d the gun come from? I flash on the old ex-cop at the metal detector. It’s got to be him. Goggle-eyed behind his bifocals, he must have overlooked her purse while looking her over.

I’m gonna shoot myself! Amber yells.

The gallery is in shock. All eyes are on the gun.

It takes a few seconds before the clock starts ticking again. And that’s when it gets worse in a hurry. Pandemonium breaks out. Lawyers grab their trial bags, trip over each other as they push their way through the aisles and out of the courtroom.

Seconds later security officers flood the courtroom, reporters scramble for their cell phones and court artists sketch frantically. I still don’t understand why the judge didn’t allow cameras. Did he somehow know this was coming?

Order! Order! screams the Honourable Jason Kramer pounding his gavel and setting his neck veins bulging. No one’s going to off herself in his courtroom.

I can’t let this happen. I drop my note pad, jump over the bench behind me and lunge at Amber. This suicide must be stopped. Amber Arsenault is as guilty as the accused—guilty by association. In fact, she was screwing the accused. How much more associated can you get?

I reach her just in time. Letting out a sob, she drops the gun and collapses into my arms. I know Amber. She’s a former hooker who allegedly turned over a new leaf, took some real estate courses and re-invented herself. And there was Barbara Gardner, about to spill the beans. It’s a wonder Amber didn’t shoot Barbara in the face right then and there. She was close enough.

The gallery bursts into spontaneous applause. Everyone’s on my side. I saved someone’s life.

But I don’t have long to savour this tribute.

I’m citing you for contempt! the judge bellows.

Who? Amber or me? I was trying to save a life here.

The bailiff isn’t impressed. He reaches for his handcuffs, strides to where we’re still holding each other and cuffs us both.

Bite me, Amber snarls, struggling to break free. As her shoulders flail around, her jacket flies open and her breasts pop out of that simple white blouse.

The gun wasn’t loaded anyway, she spits out with a smirk.

Judge Kramer’s eyes widen. Craning his neck he stares over his glasses at Amber’s enhancements.

"Ahem… court recessed until tomorrow morning," he intones with a tinge of regret in his gravelly voice.

All rise! cries the clerk, needlessly.

* * *

Give me a high five! Movie producer Lucien Bloom, the guy I’m working for, wants quick staccato writing, nudity, action. I think I’ve covered it nicely, if I say so myself.

Now, let’s see… What happens next?

Okay. Judge Kramer asks to have Amber brought to his chambers. There’s a chance she won’t have to do any jail time if she offers an… ahem… apology to the court.

I’m on a roll, but just as I get to the risqué scene in the judge’s chambers, the dog starts to bark. Damn hell! My husband must be pulling into the driveway. Well, it’s my own fault. I did train the dog. Daddy’s home! was the signal for Laachuk to go ballistic. Usually at six-thirty or so when Nick gets home. Now he goes ballistic as soon as the car nears the driveway.

I love my husband but why does he have to appear just when I’m about to nail a scene? I can just imagine Dashiell Hammett walling himself off in his beach cottage, chain smoking and drinking non-stop to keep the juices flowing. I bet he didn’t let Lillian Hellman disturb the flow until he was good and ready. And I’m sure he didn’t have a dog.

In any event, my train of thought is broken. I must rush out to kiss hubby and do the how-was-your-day thing while all along I’m thinking about my work.

I do feel guilty. Not about hubby but about the screenplay. I’m totally absorbed by it. At times it seems more real than my own daily life, and at other times, it feels as if only a thin membrane separates me from the characters I’m creating.

My screenplay is fiction, of course. But fiction based on a true story—my true story, or at least a part of my true story.

I’m inventing a new genre: true-crime fiction. And I’m not doing it for the money—well, not entirely. I see my writing as a mental health benefit. Even fictionalized, my screenplay is cathartic. Hopefully it will bring an end to something dark and unwholesome in my life. Besides, as screenwriter, I will finally see my name in lights!

Now, I didn’t start out to be a screenwriter. I thought I’d be penning a series of exquisitely wry and amusing mystery novels. But that was not in the cards—and not for lack of trying. Instead, I got talked into writing a screwy screenplay for some shady dude. In my book that doesn’t make me a loser, or does it?

After putting on the feedbag for my hubby, I retreat to my dark, moon-shadowed sunroom. I love the cozy corner by the window where my computer has been set up. It’s peaceful and still and, before I know it, I’m lost in the lives of my characters.

There are three of them, not counting me. Paul Gardner, his wife Barbara and realtor Amber Arsenault. Paul’s the bad guy, the voyeur Colby prof who got caught after he hid a video camera in a female students’ bathroom. Barbara is his poor long-suffering wife and Amber is a spicy number who sells real estate in a bad economy.

As I work deep into the night, long after hubby has turned in, I feel as if I’m wearing a scarlet letter. In my case it’s O for Obsession. Is my obsession about writing this screenplay so great that, had I known what was to come, would I still have continued? Surely not. But how was I to know that I would lose everything?—the people I care for and love, my peace of mind—and even my memories.

But my story begins at the beginning. I can’t start with the end.

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Chapter 2

Three months ago Nick and I left Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and settled in an infinitely smaller and even less exciting place—Waterville. Why deny it?

Waterville is a sleepy former mill town on the upper Kennebec River in the state of Maine. It seemed to us a bipolar village—high on the hill spreads the prestigious Colby College; in the valley squat the abandoned mills and the simple homes of the blue collar workers.

We chose to live in the shadow of the ivory tower because it’s close to Nick’s job at a nearby hospital—more specifically, it’s close to the highway which takes him to another even smaller town where the biggest excitement is the Fourth of July Parade.

Searching for a house, both Nick and I fell in love with one on the Internet. We downloaded the realtor’s posting and ogled the house, which seemed like a mansion to us coming from Ottawa where a square foot goes for five hundred dollars and up.

Hardwood everywhere, even a wedge of stained glass and then the wowzer for us land-hungry folks—a double back yard!

I know I should be ecstatic in our beautiful new home—or at least pleased, but I’m not. A sense of disquiet lingers in the nooks and crannies of this traditional Dutch Colonial. Honest people built it in 1925 but recently a pall of deceit and perversion has been cast over these spacious rooms.

God knows I’ve taken scores of courses on meditation and the like but this is different. This is not about me. It’s about the space around me. To go on living here I must bring wellness to my home—and Feng Shui just won’t cut it.

Yesterday I called my wise friend Mary Crow.

Oh, my dear! You have to smudge, she confided in her soft whispery voice.

Smudge? What’s that? I asked, incredulously. To me smudge sounded like the stuff Catholics smear on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. It couldn’t be that.

Mary explained that smudging is an ancient Native American ceremony used to cleanse a space of evil spirits. Now you’re talking, I thought to myself. This is just what I need.

Mary told me how to proceed. According to tradition, sage, cedar, sweet grass and tobacco are the Four Sacred Herbs, and luckily for me they weren’t hard to track down. It’s amazing what one can get at a health food store these days.

With deep reverence, I prepared my sacred smoke bowl. I put a match to the herbs and went to sit crossed-legged on the cushions I’d piled up in the sunroom. The cauldron flared and, as the initial flame died down, the fragrance which emanated was wonderfully intoxicating.

I relaxed, ascended to the pure land of the present moment and watched the sacred smoke waft through the house. Breathing in the healing fragrance, I felt sure that the negative spirits were a thing of the past.

But the sacred smoke seemed to have a mind of its own. After my smudging, I walked through the house and enjoyed the tangy cleansing smell—until I hit one particular room—the back room which had been a recent addition and which we call the mud room as it leads out to the back door of the house.

There was no calming atmosphere in this room. Instead, the room smelled stale and ominous. What had I done wrong?

I phoned Mary again and told her that the smudging hadn’t worked everywhere in the house.

There was a strange edge in her voice when she spoke to me.

Be careful, dear. The room is waiting.

What was she talking about? Waiting? Waiting for what?

Mary replied in a hushed tone. Evil spirits, my dear. They are on their way.

Her voice had become so low that I strained to hear what she was saying.

"There is evil yet to be experienced. All time is one cosmic reality—past, present, future. It is all now."

It is all now. I could feel the small hair rise on the back of my arms. Surely this must be nonsense, some Micmac legend—nothing to do with me or the house. I tried to shake off the scary feeling I had in the pit of my stomach but it wouldn’t go away completely.

I don’t understand, Mary. Can you tell me what’s going to happen? Do you know?

I can tell you nothing more. You have to wait, she said with finality and then the line went dead.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe she had to keep some of this confidential—like lawyers do, or priests, or something like that. I couldn’t make sense of it but Mary certainly spooked me. Nick would say that it’s all utter balderdash so I decided not to tell him about any of it.

The room is called a mud room for its own reason: muddy shoes, boots, dog food storage, washer, dryer and Laachuk’s bed—although now the dog has turned his nose up at it and chooses to sleep in our room.

It’s hard to tell if Laachuk senses something evil or not. He just doesn’t like being in that room. And nor do I. I just wipe any intruding evil off my shoes before taking them off and leaving them in the mudroom.

I decide to give my disquiet the afternoon off, settle down to work in my sunroom, and lose myself in someone else’s life.

My characters have really invaded my mind. Especially Amber and her ditzy struggle to make it as a realtor and to snag a man. Some would call her a money-grabbing slut, selling her body and soul to the highest bidder but I kind of like her.

Psychic people have premonitions. But I certainly didn’t. Not then. How could it possibly have occurred to me that I was tempting the devil, hurrying the inevitable evil hell-bent on infecting my life?

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Chapter 3

Amber did get off. No jail time for the little lady. She sure has a way with men—a certain slutty je ne sais quoi which makes them fall ass-over-teakettle the minute she walks into a room.

I’m liking this scene already. Here she is again, standing in front of my door. If they ever do make a movie out of this I want to play me. Screenwriter and Star—finally my chance to bask in the spotlight.

I’m sure Lucien will appreciate what Amber’s got on. No more boring realtor-wear. The guy wants action. He’ll get action.

One thing’s for sure: Amber’s got a killer body. Puffy lips, big breasts, curvy hips—the whole nine. But tears are running down her face and this time there’s no prim little white blouse. This time she looks like a porn star ready to audition in her leopard-print scoop-neck tee and spandex capris—except that her body language is all wrong.

Can I come in? Amber asks, dabbing at her face and wiping tears from her eyes with her French manicured finger tips. I notice her reddish hair is no longer a neat realtor do but has been cut short and punked up with gel—plus she reeks of stale Opium perfume and cigarettes.

Uh… umm, I say hesitantly. I’m kind of busy right now.

I don’t want to let her into my house. Judging from her performance in court, she’s got to be unstable.

Please… she whines, leaning against the storm door. I notice a car slowing down to stare and decide I’d better let her in or neighbours will think I’ve got a hooker hanging around. Besides, I’m a softie when it comes to a sad face and tears.

The moment I open the door, Amber’s stance changes dramatically. She’s clearly over her crying jag as she walks boldly