Headaches Can Be Murder

By Marilyn Rausch and Mary Donlon

Broke and aimless after three divorces, Chip Collingsworth wrote a crime novel as cathartic therapy. It became a success. Now they want book two. Buckling under the pressure, he escapes to Iowa to write Brain Freeze, a thriller set on the North Shore of Minnesota. What will happen when his real life starts to read like his crime fiction?

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
• Release date: Sep 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780878398720

Marilyn Rausch

Marilyn Rausch and Mary Donlon are both members of The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they met in a fiction writing class. Mary, a CPA in a previous life, resides in the Twin Cities area with her husband and twin daughters. Marilyn is a retired market research consultant and adult basic education teacher. She is the mother of two adult children and the grandmother of four.  Look for the sequel to Headaches Can Be Murder coming in 2013. 

Book preview

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Chapter One

Iowa, Saturday, November 13

Through trial and error Chip Collingsworth had discovered his cell phone got the best reception from the roof of the tool shed on the Iowa property he had recently purchased. The rickety wooden ladder he found in the shed was missing the bottom two rungs. To get to the prime cell phone location, Chip had to launch himself onto the third rung of the old ladder, gingerly creep to the top, then perch carefully on the edge of the tin roof. The November sun, midway to its zenith, offered no warmth. Procrastinating, he pondered what he would do when ice and snow prevented him from reaching the roof.

Finally he turned on his phone and checked his messages. Four from Lucinda Patterson, his literary agent, and one from his brother Parker.

Tuesday, November 9, 9:05 a.m.

Chip, this is Lucinda. Just a friendly little nudge to remind you your first 50 pages are due tomorrow. Hope sequestering yourself at your little hobby farm has gotten your creative juices flowing.

Wednesday, November 10, 5:31 p.m.

Chip … Lucinda. I fully expected to have your submission today. Perhaps it is in cyberspace somewhere between Iowa and New York. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but the terms of your contract are quite clear. I need those pages pronto.

Thursday, November 11, 9:17 a.m.

No return calls, no emails, no submission … I’m steamed, Chip. This is inexcusable. Mystery Ink has been getting nasty. Printing of the paperback of your first book goes to press tomorrow, and we had agreed to provide an excerpt of book two to insert at the end. What in the hell is going on? I don’t care how far away you are. Get me those pages now. Oh, and they better be damn good!

Friday, November 12, 2:23 p.m.

Chip, this is Lucinda Patterson. I’m calling to inform you that you are in breach of contract. You will be contacted shortly by our lawyers. All I can say is that you will be sorry, buddy. Your career is going down the toilet. Goodbye.

Saturday, November 13, 10:31 a.m.

Hey, Chip. I’m waiting to tee off at the club. Can’t believe we’re still golfing in November, but it’s a gorgeous day here in Baltimore. Have you turned into a hayseed yet? Call me. I have some good news.

Chip surveyed his property, the homestead of a defunct farm. When people said that someplace was in the middle of nowhere, this was the place. The house and outbuildings had been abandoned after the original owner, a bachelor farmer, died, and the fields had been sold to neighboring farmers. All that was left was the buildings and yard. The barn listed to the left, looking as though one well-placed shove could reduce the once-mighty structure to a pile of timber.

A line of tall Norway pines surrounded the farmyard. Beyond that, as far as Chip could see, stretched harvested cornfields.

From the north a black v-shaped flock of Canadian geese came into view. As the birds glided overhead, Chip could hear their loud honks. They, too, seemed to be scolding him for his inertia.

The fields had been lush with waving green stalks of corn on the day he arrived. The sun had been high in the sky. He had gotten in his Volvo the day after the divorce proceedings from his third wife and driven west with no place in mind and no idea of how he would survive financially. Wife number two was suing him for a chunk of his earnings from his book. He stopped in the middle of Iowa at a town named Turners Bend … population 932. I bet my editor would cringe at the lack of an apostrophe in the name, he said to himself as he entered the town. He had run out of gas … not gasoline, but the fumes that had been fueling his journey.

Now he was sitting on the roof of a tool shed, being hounded by his agent and verbally assaulted by a bunch of birds. So went life, or at least his life.

Chip found Parker on his contact list and dialed his brother’s cell number.

Hi, little brother, how’s your handicap these days?

Better than Dad’s, and that’s all that counts. Hey, I finally got around to reading your book. Not bad. I understand it’s a blockbuster, and you’re on your way to being the next John Sandford or John Grisham. Your portrayals of Bambi and Erica were pretty thinly veiled, though. I can’t believe they haven’t put up a fuss.

Oh, I’ve heard from Bambi’s lawyer, of course. She’s sleeping with him now, by the way. Erica could care less. I doubt she has even lowered herself to read it. She’s too busy spending her divorce settlement in Paris. So what’s the good news you called about?

Oh, I was made chief of staff in Neurosurgery, so you can thank me for saving the family name.

Congrats, I appreciate it. Hey, do you ever see Mary?

We have coffee every once in a while at the hospital. She’s nursing director of the NICU, and quite happy, I think. Her husband’s a pretty decent guy, and she’s crazy about those two little boys. I still can’t believe you left her for Bambi.

Let’s set the record straight. I didn’t leave her. She left me, and it’s probably one of the smartest things she ever did. I really screwed up. She was the best thing that happened to me, and I drove her away.

Hey, don’t put yourself down. Sure you made some bad choices, but you’ve redeemed yourself now and you’re sitting on the top of the literary world.

Chip looked at the tool shed roof. He was on top of something, anyway. Well, I don’t imagine I’ve redeemed myself with Dad.

Sorry Chip, the course starter’s calling my foursome. Take care.

Charles Edgar Collingsworth III, son of Dr. Charles Edgar Collingsworth Jr., the eminent neurosurgeon, and grandson of Dr. Charles Edgar Collingsworth Sr., the world-renowned pioneer of neurosurgery, sat on the roof of a tool shed in the middle of Iowa. His younger brother was now in the place where his family had expected Chip to be.

And Chip, what was he? He was a medical school dropout, who was once married to a smart, hard-working nurse, and who then married a conniving gold-digging cocktail waitress, and subsequently married his prominent Baltimore divorce lawyer. Yes, his own divorce lawyer divorced him! In the end the substantial inheritance from his grandfather was reduced to his Volvo and his laptop.

He had his therapist to thank, or perhaps blame, for him becoming a writer.

Write down your feelings, Chip. Write about who you want to be. Visualize yourself as a successful, purpose-driven person, Dr. Cooper had said.

I assume you mean instead of the loser that I am, Chip had replied.

He did write, but not exactly what his therapist had suggested. He wrote The Cranium Killer, a whodunit about a serial killer who removed the brains of his victims with surgical precision. Two of the victims were an unscrupulous cocktail waitress and a cold-hearted female attorney. He described their deaths in gory detail, dredging up anatomy lessons from his past. The hero was a brilliant neurosurgeon called in by the police to consult on the crimes. Dr. John Goodman had devoted himself to his profession and had never married, although many young, beautiful women lusted after him. But he was too busy saving lives and tracking down serial killers to return their affections.

One day in a New York bar, Chip sat down next to a tall, striking woman in a gray business suit and stiletto heels—Lucinda Patterson. A few drinks later, he had a literary agent. Two weeks later, she had sold his book to Mystery Ink, a small publisher. Much to his surprise and Lucinda’s pleasure, the mystery-reading public was seduced by his lurid descriptions and charmed by the dashing doctor. Lucinda envisioned a multi-book series and signed Chip to a three-book contract. With the publisher’s advance, he had updated the plumbing and electricity in his farmhouse.

Chip had set up his laptop, but nothing happened. He had vented his anger at Bambi and Erica by literally dissecting them in his first book. He had assuaged his guilt by creating as his protagonist the perfect doctor his father wanted him to be. He had eradicated his loser status and become a successful author for at least a brief illusionary period of time.

But he had nothing more to write about. He was in hot water again. Lucinda had cleverly written a penalty clause in his contract. He had to produce two more books on a tight timetable or he would lose a bundle of revenue. Dr. Cooper might say he would lose something a lot more important than money—he would lose his newly gained self-respect and purpose and his motivation to be self-actualized, whatever the hell that meant.

It was cold on the shed roof. The wind nipped his ears, and his nose began to run. He watched tiny flakes float down and land on his jacket, each leaving a wet splotch seconds after touching the nylon shell. He turned around to descend the ladder. He planted his right foot on the top rung. His left foot reached the next rung, and the rotting wood splintered.

He fell to the ground. He heard it. The crack of his skull as it hit the ground. Chip wondered if he was seeing stars. No. It took him a few seconds to realize they were big, fat snowflakes. An image from Giants in the Earth sprang into his mind … the farmer who goes out to his barn in a blizzard and isn’t found until the snow melts in spring. Would this be how it would end for him? Alone? With no one who gave a rip about him, except for a money-hungry literary agent.

None of his limbs were bent. He had landed flat on this back and hit his head on the frozen mud that surrounded the shed. The wind had been knocked out of him.

He willed himself to breathe. Cautiously he lifted his head and felt the back of his skull. He recalled from his all-too-brief days in medical school that a bump growing out rather than swelling inward was a good sign. He inspected with his hand. Egg-sized bump, no blood, no laceration.

Slowly he rose and made his way into the house, retrieving his cell phone from the ground. He took three Double Strength Tylenol and poured himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s. His head was throbbing with growing intensity and his eyes were playing funny tricks on him; images wavered before his eyes.

As he stared at the yellow linoleum floor of his kitchen, it came to him. In a flash of strobbing light, he visualized a frozen body found in the snow, perplexing forensic evidence, and the handsome Dr. Goodman called back into action.

He opened his laptop on the kitchen table and began to write the opening chapter of his second novel. He followed the well-used formula of starting with a dead body. He would end with the solution of the murder. Filling in the space between would be the challenge.

Chapter Two

Brain Freeze, By Charles E. Collingsworth III

Castle Danger, Minnesota

Mitch Calhoun sat naked at the scarred pine desk, scribbling frantically. His normally tight, neat script was long and sprawling on the ripped out pages from a long forgotten coloring book. The tip of the pen ripped through the frail paper as he underlined his thoughts again and again.

The pen dropped to the floor as he reached up to grip his head, trying to keep it from exploding. A chain of multi-colored lights blinked in his vision, a strobe light show making him nauseous. Unsteady feet carried him into the bathroom. He flicked on the light switch, but the brightness caused another shrieking pain in his skull and he snapped it back off. The faucet handle of the shower creaked as he turned it as hot as it would go; water pipes groaned. The smell of sulfur from the old well added to his queasiness as he leaned against the wall, willing for the blessed heat to come to the water.

When steam fogged up the mirror, he stumbled into the spray, not bothering to close the shower door. Closing his eyes against the scalding sting, he waited for relief that almost always came from the hot water. Instead the pain intensified. He grabbed his head again, pushing in from both sides as if to hold it together. Dropping to his hands and knees, a wave of nausea rose up and he vomited on the floor of the shower. He crawled out of the shower onto the yellowed linoleum.

The strobe lights continued their triangular flashes in his head. Closing his eyes brought no relief. He crawled along the gritty floor on his elbows. Reaching the desk, he attempted to pull himself upright using the chair as a crutch. The chair toppled over and he fell backwards, cracking his head on the barn-board floor. Stars co-mingled with the flashing lights of his vision.

He lay there for a moment, trying to find an inner reserve of strength. People have to know. Sitting up slowly, carefully, he reached above his head and pulled down the sheets of the coloring book. He turned over to crawl on his hands and knees once more, gripping the sheets in his hand. He made it to the outside door, reached up to grip the brass knob and tried to stand upright. The pain pushed him down to the floor again. It was a struggle not to pass out.

After the third try, he managed to open the door. A burst of cold air and snow swirled around his wet, naked body, freezing the drops of water to his skin. He winced at the natural light streaming into the darkened cabin. His stomach lurched, and he leaned forward to retch. He fell out the door and landed hard on the frozen stoop.

The ice beneath his body was razor sharp and it ripped into his flesh. Mitch Calhoun did not feel anything, however. The aneurysm had done its job.

Hey, Doc. What do we have here? Detective Mike Frisco looked down at the frozen man on the stoop illuminated by bright spot lights. Snow had been carefully scooped away, but it continued to fall in big, fat flakes from the black sky, threatening to cover up the body once more.

Blue and red lights bounced off the planes of the detective’s face. He shivered, hunching his shoulders against the snow that threatened to blow down the collar of his jacket. It was dark, it was cold, and he wanted to be anywhere but here, staring at some bare-assed dead guy. Why the hell do I live in this tundra again?

Medical Examiner Sid Jurgenson stood up from his crouch over the body. Hard to say, Frisco. Looks like it’s gonna be awhile before we can even thaw out the body enough to unstick him from the stoop. The guy’s a friggin’ popsicle. What an idiot. Even on my best drunks I knew better than to wander out into a Minnesota snowstorm without any clothes on.

Frisco shifted on his feet, trying to restore some warmth to his toes.

So, if this is a case of some drunken bonehead who wandered out and found himself frozen to death, what do you need me for?

We don’t have a certain cause of death, on account of his being an icicle and all. And we didn’t find any booze in the cabin. You need to be involved from the get-go, just in case this turns out to be a homicide.

Gotcha. Do we have any idea who he is?

Joe over there … Sid thumbed in the direction of one of the officers, … found some ID in the cabin. Our victim is Mitch Calhoun. He’s outta Maple Grove. Poor bastard’s only twenty three. He shook his head. What a waste.

Who found the body?

Ethel Johnson. She’s worked for this sorry excuse of a resort for years. She came over to clean this afternoon, found the door wide open and the shower running. When she tried walking through what she thought was a snow drift at the door, she tripped and fell on our buddy here. Freaked her out but good. He chuckled. Guess falling on some dead guy’s bare backside will do that to you.

Did she move anything?

Nah. She took one look at the dead guy and screamed to high heaven.

Sid turned back towards the cabin in time to see Joe crab-walking around the body with a large aluminum pot, steam rolling out into the cold air. Excuse me, sirs. When they stepped to the side to let him through, he held out the pot in front of him with brown potholders, trying not to spill the boiling water on his uniform. Thought this might help get the vic loosened from the pavement.

Sid clapped him on the back, causing a bit of the water to slop over the sides and onto Joe’s shoes. I always said your momma raised a smart boy. Still, I think we’re going to need more than warm water on this one. He put his hand to his chin, considering the situation. Do me a favor, will you? Call Father Mike at St. Agnes and ask if we can borrow one of them tents from the church picnics. You know, one of ’em with the sides that close. Might be able to keep the body from getting any more snow on it and give us a warmer place to work.

Joe ran off to use his cell phone. Sid got on his cell and called his office. Bud, I need you to run over to Fleet Farm and pick up a couple/three heat lamps they got over there. Bring them on over to the cabins at Marten’s resort … .Yeah, pronto. And, Bud? Make sure you save the damn receipt, will you? This isn’t coming out of my pocket.

He snapped the phone shut and looked at Detective Frisco. Always feels better when I’ve got people hopping.

A few hours later, between the heat lamps and the warm water, they were able to loosen the body enough to flip it over. Sid knelt down. That should do it. Here, give me a hand with this bad boy, will you, Frisco?

Together, they gently pulled at the edges of the body. It came free, but several strips of skin stayed behind.

Joe jumped back. Holy Mother of God! Look at those chunks of blood frozen around his mouth and nose. What’s up with that?

Sid and Detective Frisco leaned in to take a closer look. The ME spoke first. Doesn’t look like our boy died of exposure, now does it? Sid took a small pan of warm water and poured it carefully on the patches of skin. Water hissed as it hit the cold concrete. He collected the pieces with tweezers and put them in a plastic evidence bag.

Detective Frisco wrinkled his nose in disgust. How can you stand this job, Sid?

Sid shrugged. "Comes with the territory. You just deal with it, you know? Besides, it’s the least I can do to return all of this boy to his family. He turned to look back at the body that was waiting to be zipped up in the body bag. Hey. What’s that?" He pointed to a taupe-colored glob in the victim’s hand.

Looks like some paper or something. Hey, hand me those tweezers, will you? The detective started pulling at the paper, but it came out in pieces.

Better let it be until I get the body back to the lab and thaw it out completely. We sure don’t want to destroy any evidence. Sid zipped up the bag and called for the gurney.

He turned back to Detective Frisco. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.

Chapter Three

Turners Bend

Saturday, November 13

Throughout Saturday words flowed from Chip’s injured head and through his fingers, letter after letter, word after word marched across his laptop screen. He wrote the first chapter non-stop, while outside his farmyard silently filled with snow. A victim’s frozen body had been discovered in the snow. Re-reading his description of the body elicited an eew from Chip. He was pleased. It never ceased to amaze him … readers loved blood and guts. The working title came to him in a flash.

Save to new file … Brain Freeze.doc. Done.

Chip looked up from the screen and was startled to see that the kitchen was dark, lit only by an eerie greenish glow emanating from his computer. All his senses had been immune to the changes around him in the hours that had passed. He awoke from his writing zone and felt like crap. The effects of the Tylenol had departed, his head pounded, his shoulders ached from hunching over the keyboard and his backside was numb from sitting for hours on the wooden kitchen chair.

The kitchen windows rattled and the dingy, dotted Swiss curtains billowed from the draft. Frost had formed on the inside of the windows, etching icy patterns. The house temperature was bone-chilling. Chip could hear the gravity furnace whirring, but that old octopus in the cellar was losing its battle against the monster blizzard raging outside the house.

Chip went to the back door and flicked on the porch light. Whirling snow obliterated the trees and shed. It eddied and swirled against the black background of the night sky. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time. He stood transfixed. It was his first Midwest whiteout and a meteorological excuse for being late with his submission to Lucinda. A fall from a ladder, a head injury, and now a blizzard—she would buy his excuses. She would know it was a crock, but the woman was driven by greed and Brain Freeze would be a moneymaker for her. This storm was saving his sorry ass.

The thermostat was set at seventy-two degrees but read sixty-four. Chip moved it up to eighty and put his terrycloth robe on over his clothes. The thick, white robe had been a complimentary amenity from the Caribbean cruise he and Erica had taken for their honeymoon. The contrast between the robe in its origin and the robe in this time and place made him smile and shake his head. Poor robe, did it know how comically out of place it was in Turners Bend, Iowa? Was it suffering from culture shock? His mouth was dry and his stomach growling.

Now let’s see, Bush’s Beans or Campbell’s Tomato Soup? Chip went to the refrigerator and sniffed the carton of milk. Fresh enough for tomato soup, I guess. Talking to myself. That’s a sure sign you’re cracking up, old boy. Going crazy like the sodbusters cooped up in their prairie homes during the winter.

Warmed up a little and nourished by the soup chased by a swig of whiskey, Chip returned to his computer to send Chapter One to Lucinda.

Sunday, November 14, 1:37 a.m.

Dear Lucinda,

Check the national weather. We are having a frigging blizzard here on the prairie. Phone and Internet service has been spotty. In addition, I had an accident. Just a 12-foot fall from the roof and a concussion, but not to worry, the book is coming along splendidly. Our fans will love this one. See attached.

Chip

Send. Pray she buys your malarkey, Chipster.

Chip powered down the laptop and shut the lid. He went to the sink and put some Dawn on a sponge and began to wash his dishes. The wind had been playing the house with an orchestra of sounds, but it suddenly died down and all was still. His ears picked up a new sound … first a whining sound and then a scratching that seemed to be coming from the backdoor.

A wild animal? What animals do they have in Iowa? Wolves? Coyotes? Bear? Chip had no idea. No, it really sounded more like a dog. Wild dog? Rabid dog? He cautiously knelt down, opened the door a crack and came nose to nose with a golden retriever with frost on its muzzle and pain in its glazed-over brown eyes. The dog whimpered again, and Chip opened the door to let it into the kitchen.

The dog, along with a cloud of snow, fell on to the kitchen floor accompanied by a loud clanging. Attached to a metal collar was a heavy iron chain and at the end the spike that had once anchored the dog to something. Its coat was matted and clumped with frozen snow and ice. It lay motionless except for