Allow me
to introduce myself. My name is Karla Stover. I have lived in Tacoma, WA all my
life as did my parents. My paternal
grandparents were the first homesteaders in Oregon’s Warner Valley, owned the
water rights, and had a cattle ranch. My maternal grandparents left Johnstown,
PA around 1915 and settled in Tacoma. They passed their love of books and
reading to my mother who passed it on to me. The maternal grandparents were
survivors of the 1889 Johnstown, PA flood, lived very long lives, and often talked
about it. I also spent time on the cattle ranch which had few modern
conveniences. I love history. Until the last financial crash, I wrote a monthly
article on some aspect of local history for a local newspaper. I also talk
about Tacoma’s amazing past weekly on KLAY 1180 am, and, if I did it right,
that love shows in my second murder mystery, Murder, When One Isn’t Enough. It revolves around the book, Madame of the House, San Francisco
madam, Sally Stanford’s autobiography.
My
first book was nonfiction, Let’s Go Walk
About in Tacoma.
Next
was a murder mystery, Murder on the Line.
Then,
another nonfiction, Hidden History of
Tacoma: Little-known Tales of the City of Destiny.
Murder, When One Isn’t Enough was also a murder mystery, a
sequel to the first one.
A Feather for a Fan, followed—fiction set in a
nonfiction environment.
A
third, nonfiction Tacoma history book is currently being edited AND
For
BWL I’m writing a historical-romance-mystery called Wynters Way. The cover is great.
I
am a slow writer which means no time to tweet or keep up a website or blog, but
I write because I have to. Don’t all authors?
EXCEPT FROM Murder, When One isn’t
Enough
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| Amazon |
After dinner, I read more
letters, learned more about the many properties Sally owned, but especially
about the house at 1144 Pine Street, which had a fountain in the drawing room.
Supposedly, delegates from various countries convened in the house’s living
room and formed the United Nations there. In addition to Humphrey Bogart, Frank
Sinatra liked to drop in, and she entertained shahs, princes, national
dignitaries, and California state and local government officials. On quiet
nights, her girls made fudge. Sally also read obituaries and often paid the
funeral expenses of Depression homeless.
However, it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops. Patsy developed a
drinking problem. Two men broke in one night and beat Sally up. She kept a
seldom-seen photograph of a seldom-seen son who was tucked away in boarding
school.
I finished the last letter, bundled them up, and turned out the lights.
Outside, the natives were restless. Two peacocks wandered down from the hill
and took refuge on the garage roof next door. A raccoon walked up and down
under the bedroom window, making crunchy noises on the gravel, and occasionally
standing up to try and look in. Porch Cat’s tail twitched back and forth as he
kept track of the movements. After a while I took a sleeping pill. The moon lit
up the room and I dozed in its light until around midnight when the phone rang.
I stumbled into the living room, picked it up and heard someone humming.
“You again. Well, you little pervert, buzz off because, frankly, I don’t
give a damn.” I slammed the receiver in its cradle.
Back in the bedroom, a mosquito hummed. “Bite me and you’ll be sorry.”
It did, and it was. I turned on my stomach and fell asleep.
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