Daggyland #2: Daggyland, #2

By Joseph D'Agnese

Published together for the first time are 10 masterful short stories by the winner of the Derringer Award for Short Mystery Fiction. Four of these tales first appeared in the pages of the world's greatest mystery magazines...

If you ravenously consume mystery novels by the bushel, if the annual Best American Mystery Stories anthology is among your must-reads, if you hanker to get your hands on the latest copies of Ellery Queen's or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, then Daggyland is for you!

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DECEIT

A wily churchman will do anything to keep scandal from falling on his family.

MURDER

On a lonely road in the middle of nowhere, a sweet elderly couple encounter a serial killer. Possibly the worst serial killer the world has ever seen.

BETRAYAL

A small boy makes a choice that haunts him for the rest of his life.

* * *

Welcome to Daggyland, a strange, sick little place where betrayal, vengeance, and murder are only the beginning!

Get it today and treat yourself to a murderously good time.

THIS COLLECTION CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING STORIES:

Double-Slay

A Respectable Lady

The Cardinal's Blade

Her Father's Killer

The Henrian Twist

Indoor Hunting Season

The Box Top Man

The Knickerbocker Kill

Fork in the Heart

Last Dance in Hoboken

PLUS an excerpt of a novel!

* * *

"D'Agnese writes the most unusual and interesting books." — Bookviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nutgraf Productions, LLC
• Release date: Jan 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781941410233

Joseph D'Agnese

Joseph D’Agnese is a journalist and author who has written for children and adults alike. He’s been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Discover, and other national publications. In a career spanning more than twenty years, his work has been honored with awards in three vastly different areas—science journalism, children’s literature, and mystery fiction. His science articles have twice appeared in the anthology Best American Science Writing. His children’s book, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, was an honoree for the Mathical Book Prize—the first-ever prize for math-themed children’s books. One of his crime stories won the 2015 Derringer Award for short mystery fiction. Another of his stories was selected by mega-bestselling author James Patterson for inclusion in the prestigious annual anthology, Best American Mystery Stories 2015. D’Agnese’s crime fiction has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. D’Agnese lives in North Carolina with his wife, the New York Times bestselling author Denise Kiernan (The Girls of Atomic City).

Book preview

Daggyland #2

Daggyland #2

By Joseph D’Agnese

Ripped from the pages of the world’s

greatest mystery magazines…

DECEIT

A wily churchman will do anything

to keep scandal from falling on his family.

MURDER

On a lonely road in the middle of nowhere, a sweet elderly couple encounter the worst serial killer the world has ever seen.

BETRAYAL

A small boy makes a choice

that haunts him for the rest of his life.

---

Published together for the first time

are ten masterful short stories by a winner

of the Derringer Award for Short Mystery Fiction.

---

Join The VIP Club

Members of The Daggyland VIP Club get a free Starter Library of the author’s books, not to mention advance news on upcoming books and specials. See the back of the book for details on how to sign up.

D’Agnese writes the most unusual and interesting books.

—Bookviews

Daggyland #2

10 Short Stories

Joseph D’Agnese

NutGraf Productions LLC

Contents

Introduction

1. Double-Slay

2. A Respectable Lady

3. The Cardinal’s Blade

4. Her Father’s Killer

5. The Henrian Twist

6. Indoor Hunting Season

7. The Box Top Man

8. The Knickerbocker Kill

9. Fork in the Heart

10. Last Dance in Hoboken

EXTRA STORY

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Join the VIP Club

Also by Joseph D’Agnese

Bonus: Novel Excerpt

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Introduction

It never fails that when I meet strangers at parties, usually as I’m stuffing the third deviled egg into my face, they choose to ask the worst writer question possible: Where do you get your ideas?

A writer whose name escapes me was fond of replying, Haven’t you ever had an idea?

But I think it’s a tricky subject for writers. I know one writer of nonfiction who absolutely refuses to answer that first question because it’s a sore subject for him. Deciding what book to write next is a grueling process that could take him more than a year to work through.

Fiction writers, on the other hand, typically fall into a second camp. For us, it’s similarly annoying to meet a stranger who says something along the lines of, Hey—I’ve got an idea for you!

Uh, no. Thanks, but I’ve got plenty. Way too many, in fact. More than I have years to write them.

For me, the more interesting question is, Where do stories come from? That’s an infinitely cooler thing to ponder. The easiest thing to say about the ten stories in this volume is that they all arose from something in my personal life. Yes, yes—I know that’s not saying much. But when I drilled down recently and looked at how some of these stories came to be, I realized that it was a mix of something I read, something I saw, something I overheard. Stuff like that. In nearly every case, the germ of the idea was ridiculously slight.

I talked to a guy about gossips in his funky small town, and that became a story. I saw something in a doctor’s office as a kid, and my adult self turned it into a story. One of these stories arose from a road trip I took ages ago. Another started as a class assignment, then got rewritten after my eyeballs soaked up what life is like in another country. One is just me riffing on the world of Sherlock Holmes.

You get the point. Invariably, I can always tell you how the story started. Where the germ of the idea came from. It’s far more complicated to explain all the steps from start to finish. Like anyone who works in the arts, a writer pours a thought in his head, filters it through his soul, and it comes out his fingers.

And that’s about the closest I can ever come to explaining the process of making a story. I can more easily tell you how to bake a plate of cookies. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy these ten just as much.

Joseph D’Agnese

January 2019

One

Double-Slay

One of the most memorable road trips in my life was driving from Montana to Alaska. The biggest chunk of that journey was driven along a fascinating stretch of road called the Alaska Highway, built during World War II to connect the continental USA—the Lower 48—to what was then the Territory of Alaska. The condition of the roadway ranges from poor to excellent, with amazing views along the way. Crime writers see danger in beautiful places, but my memory of that trip is too special to make too frightening—hence the humor in this piece.

About fifty miles from the Alaskan border and twenty minutes before they were supposed to die, the gray-haired couple from Terre Haute started to see the tops of the Wrangell Mountains. Well, actually not the tops. The peaks were high in the clouds. But the mountains were certainly taller, whiter and shinier than either Stan or Candace had ever seen.

Is that not amazing? Can said.

Beautiful, just beautiful, Stan agreed. We should stop and take a picture, don’t you think?

He turned to the man sitting quietly in the backseat of their Ford SUV. Do you mind if we stop to take a picture?

Not at all!

The two seniors had picked up John Nutley about fifteen miles back along the Alaska Highway. A poor schlub in an oversized parka that still exuded the new-coat smell of the tourist trap he’d bought it in. The fellow was fretting by the side of the road, lamenting the breakdown of the battered Tercel he claimed to have driven all the way from Ohio. Stan had wanted to leave him and phone for help, but Can wouldn’t hear of it. Their mobile phones hadn’t picked up a signal for miles. She felt it was unconscionable to leave a fellow American out here in the middle of nowhere. Can was sweet that way.

Now, only an hour or so later, Stan pulled over and killed the ignition. The couple and their rider trekked out to the scenic overlook, just beyond where the asphalt melded into gravel and snow. There was a bit of an incline, which caused the two tourists to puff a bit as they climbed. Not kids anymore, Stan thought. But still, it was worth the effort to be out here in the middle of nowhere, just a finger’s breath from heaven and stuff.

They reached a low stone wall overlooking a steep drop. Stan inhaled the fresh biting air. White majestic mountains. Beautifully lichened rocks. And pine-scented conifers. It was paradise. Stan and Can snapped away.

And poor, overdressed John Nutley merely gawked at the mountains, a camo-colored boonie hat hiding his prematurely balding scalp and a goofy smile climbing on his face. He could have been in his mid-forties or as young as their own son, who was a few years out of college. John Nutley had a strange way of looking past you when he spoke, which gave Stan an uneasy feeling. That, and the fact that the fellow’s pale-hazel eyes resembled those of a goat.

Funny, John Nutley said. You’d think that there would be no snow, being summer and all. But up here, they’ve got snow all the time.

It’s what they do, Stan said with a laugh. His cheeks were dangerously red. Throughout the trip, from the moment they rented the car at the Missoula airport, he’d been popping aspirin in addition to his usual blood pressure medication to help deal with the elevation. He was eager to report back to his doctor that his health had been superb for the entire trip. For sure, the golden years of his retirement loomed ahead as tempting and beautiful as the Wrangells themselves.

Stan let Can take a few pics on her own while he perused the brochures he’d picked up in Haines Junction. Right over the border there would be a few decent dining and shopping options. A BBQ lodge that specialized in exotic Alaskan fare. Elk steaks, bear cutlets, salmon grilled tableside. And there was another place, a supposedly fantastic sushi place, in the same shopping center.

He was starving, truth be known. The continental breakfast at the motor lodge two hundred miles back had not cut it one bit, what with all the extra exertion he’d put in this morning, trying to get John Nutley’s car to start in the brisk air of the Yukon summer morning. Stan just hoped to heck they could put the young man in touch with a ranger on the other side. Stan didn’t relish having to lug another kid around with them everywhere they went. Why, they’d only last month kicked their youngest out of the house. He’d been so reluctant to leave the nest. Young people today just weren’t very self-sufficient, were they?

If you like, I could take a picture of the two of you together, John Nutley said.

Oh, would you?

Can showed him how to work the camera. When he was done, and Stan and Can were still arm in arm and looking like a couple of overfed chipmunks, the young man cleared his throat.

Well, you folks sure have been nice, but I’m sorry to say this is the end of the road.

They laughed. How so, young man? Stan said.

To their dismay, John Nutley produced a gun from his pocket. Stan and Can gasped.

I’ve been riding this road for a week looking for the right couple, but so few people fit the criteria. Not too smart, not too dumb either. Not too fit, not too decrepit. And you’d be surprised how hard it is to find a couple with ties to a community back home. A couple that people would miss, you know?

What on earth are you intending to do, son?

Oh, right, John Nutley said, those pale eyes glancing off Stan’s shoulder and avoiding his direct gaze. I’m a serial killer. And it’s been my mission for a while now to kill as many people as possible all over this great land of ours.

Canada? Can said.

No, the States.

"Son, we’re at least eighteen hundred miles from the USA border—in that direction."

So it took me a while to find the right couple, he said. "I didn’t realize I’d crossed the border, okay? Now, look, we’re only fifty miles to the US in that direction, but this can’t wait. This is such a pretty view that I can’t see the sense of spoiling it by letting you live."

Can started crying. I don’t understand why. Why? Why should it be this way?

These killings of yours, Stan said, have you pulled off a lot of them?

I pushed a guy down an elevator shaft in Cleveland once.

Can gasped. He…died?

Not really, John Nutley said. He sort of caught the cable on the way down and got some workmen to come fetch him in a jiffy.

"So, no, then," Stan said.

"I think I could have made it work, but I just wasn’t sweating the details. For a while I tried being a slasher or a strangler, but you really have to get up close and personal to people in that line of work. A person who’s strong can give you such a thrashing if you try to off them that way. I stuck a guy in a bar once. I figured he was drunk and I could just dump him out back and take his car or maybe his bandana as a trophy. You see, if you’re going to be a serial killer, you need to start collecting trophies."

What did you take of his?

Well, the bandana should have tipped me off. He was a biker, and sort of kicked my butt a little. I didn’t get too far killing him at all.

Stan raised a palm. "Son, why don’t you get a job or something? You’re a terrible serial killer."

You don’t have any call to be saying that. You don’t know the whole of it. I’ve always been something of an underachiever. I don’t have a decent job or prospects to speak of. And no one back home would be all that surprised to hear I’d turned to crime. I pretty much keep to myself.

Three names? Can said, looking at Stan. "Don’t all those poor sick men have three names? What’s your middle name, honey?"

That’s the thing. My parents didn’t give me one.

Bad sign, son. See? Clearly, it’s not meant to be.

"I was thinking of adopting a middle initial. Like X, for Xavier.