Making a return visit

by donalee Moulton

On June 18th the anthology Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense became available on store shelves, virtual and otherwise. Nestled in those 301 pages, you’ll meet private detective E.M. Montgomery. (You have to guess what the E.M. stands for.)

Em, as she’s known to friends and family, has now made an appearance in six short stories. This is both deliberate and inadvertent. She is continuing a trend that started with my first mystery short story—and taking it much, much further.

A few years ago, the Crime Writers of Canada put out a call for an anthology to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. The theme was cold in the broadest sense. I took the easy route and opted for sub-zero temperatures. My story, “Swan Song,” is set in Iqaluit in the Canadian arctic. Here temperatures often drop below zero. Fahrenheit.

Three judges commented on each entry, and all three remarked on how much they liked to read a story set in place they didn’t know much about. I knew a little about Iqaluit having worked there as a consultant over a period of five years. It occurred to me, and several of the people who read “Swan Song,” that fictional police chief Doug Brumal might have more than one case to solve. When I went to write my second short story, “Troubled Water,” I returned to Doug and the Iqaluit Constabulary.

And now there’s Em, a private detective in Halifax Nova Scotia. A call went out for humorous mystery stories, and I decided to create a new character and my first PI. In that story Em solves the murder of man who is an avid birder. Em starts her own life list, and each story is named after a bird including “Zebra Finch,” and “Belted Kingfisher.” (In Midnight Schemers, the title has been changed to more closely reflect the theme of the collection.)

I’ve discovered that bringing back characters lets you explore that character more as a person with peccadillos and personality, and not simply a means to solve a crime. It also means their friends, family, colleagues, and other human (and non-human) adjacents make return visits. A small world begins to grow one short story at a time.

In Em’s case, she’s coming back in a big way. I have a contract to write Cardinal, my first paranormal mystery. It’s part of a cross-Canada series, and Em is making her inaugural appearance as the main character in a book.

I can’t predict what characters will come back to life. They seem to dictate their own comings and goings. I now have three stories featuring a retired lawyer in New Orleans who sells sex toys. She’ll be back. I just had a story accepted featuring a student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine. It’s unlikely she’ll ever solve a second crime. I have no idea why.

But I’ve learned to listen. They’ll let me know if their work is not done.