Lunatic
Crime Fiction Excerpt by Mira Gibson
Prologue
THE DARKENED SIDEWALK smelled of exhaust fumes and dank trash, which the brutal downpour seemed to magnify, kicking up all kinds of odors.
Vehicles rushed down the avenue in both directions, headlights blazing, tires bouncing over potholes and splashing puddles. The swishing sound of never ending traffic in concert with the dull hum of the city.
Danielle Foster angled her umbrella against the stiff wind, its nylon canopy taking a beating, as she shuffled along Caton Avenue, galoshes sloshing through puddles, the plastic bag of diapers in her left hand slick with rain. The front of her jeans were uncomfortably damp, but stealing twenty minutes to herself made it worthwhile.
She fought the urge to hunch her shoulders and instead embraced the bad weather, as a sixteen wheeler growled by, the sound of its engine diluting the usual street noises — intermittent honks, shouted disagreements billowing out from the bodegas and five-and-dimes that kept their doors propped open despite the thrashing downpour. The truck driver seemed anxious to find the interstate. He was miles off course.
Though she felt pathetically grateful for the walk, the sinister weather tugged on her mood.
The neighborhood of Kensington, Brooklyn, was a gritty, residential grid comprised of rowhouses, pre-war brick apartment buildings, and detached one-family Victorians, the latter of which seemed eerily out of place. Convenience stores, Chinese take-out joints, and the occasional bar added to the hodgepodge personality of nearly every intersection, though Danny had come to appreciate the aesthetic. It wasn’t pretty, but neither was she.
As she came to the curb, stopping at the crosswalk signal, asphalt rumbled beneath her feet. The F train was barreling through a tunnel underground, a familiar sensation.
Trotting up beside her, a pair of teenagers — sopping wet, hiding under hoodies, cackling at the sting of chilly rain assaulting them — took turns pushing the crosswalk button, an act of good faith they couldn’t live up to. When they darted into the street, eyeing oncoming cars and jogging in-between, Danny held her breath until they had safely reached the other side.
No sooner than they had, the crosswalk signal changed.
Danny leapt and cleared the street gutter where grimy water rushed towards a storm drain. Hurrying through the intersection, she came to another stream, but hopped onto the curb.
As long as the wind didn’t change directions and snap her umbrella inside out she wouldn’t complain. At least she was stretching her legs, getting some air, no longer cooped up in her apartment where her son’s cries — the ear splitting screams of a tantruming infant — had a way of blaring through the baby monitor moments after she had put him down.
At the next corner the wooden sign for O’Toole’s was swaying in the wind, rain spitting off it. Guardedly, she slowed her pace, nearing the cloudy windows and spying the off-duty cops inside. They huddled around their favorite tables, pounding pints as though they were one drink away from forgetting how rough it could be — serving and protecting a city that considered them the enemy.
Danny felt naked without her gun at her hip, an outsider in her own world.
Offering one another feigned smiles, a consoling shoulder squeeze here, an arm jab there, the bar patrons exchanged monosyllabic remarks, but Danny looked past them to the bartender behind the bar, while rain streaked down the glass, obscuring her view.
Without realizing it, she wriggled her hand through the plastic bag’s handle, the diapers inside banging against her raincoat, and touched her stomach, as she watched the bartender — the one who had gotten away.
He threw a dishrag over his broad shoulder, delivering another damp stain to his gray tee-shirt, and plowed his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, his gaze down, face in profile as though he couldn’t quite commit to the tale that one of his buddies was telling him from across the counter. His deep-set eyes narrowed — the story was getting interesting — and when he glimpsed his friend, his eyebrows shot up to his hairline and his lip curled into a wry smile.
Danny knew that look. A booming laugh would come next, then his slate-gray eyes would liven. Maybe he’d straighten his spine and fold his arms skeptically, making the most of his six-foot height as if to challenge — you serious?
He had the build of a firefighter, because he used to be one. He had the busted nose of a bar owner who had broken up his fair share of fights. The burn mark running down the side of his neck was among her favorite battle scars. His body was a playground of old cuts, bones that had healed badly, injuries that acted up when the air turned damp and nasty like tonight. But that was as much as she knew about him — physical intimacy. Had there ever been an emotional connection between them?
Of course, Danny had learned a few details over the months about Tommy. He was divorced. No children. Born and raised in Brooklyn, and hardened because of it, which summed up the extent of what she knew about him.
It hadn’t been enough.
She had missed the signal more than once so when it flipped, she started through the crosswalk, cutting up Ocean Parkway where brick rowhouses lined the block, hers among them.
Rain bounced off the stoop steps, as she lumbered up to the entrance door, her sopping jeans giving very little at the knees.
With stiff fingers, she fit her key into the lock and just as she pushed into the dingy entryway of her building, a sharp gust of wind snapped her umbrella inside out.
A sheet of rain sliced down the back of her neck.
She set the wet plastic bag of diapers on the tiles in favor of collapsing her umbrella, as the door slapped shut behind her.
On the opposite side of the cramped lobby, the building super, Camil Usov — a cranky old Russian with a thick accent — loosened his hold on the mop he was gripping as if the water she’d brought in with her had defeated him. He swore in Russian under his breath.
He shuffled over, carrying a yellow ‘wet floor’ sign, and set it beside her, as if she wasn’t aware of the puddle she had made.
“Nasty out,” he commented.
As she picked up her plastic bag, having wrestled her mangled umbrella into shape, she commiserated, mentioning, “It’s not going to let up until May.”
“Good for the baby, eh?” he said, mopping at her heels as she made her way to the stairwell door. “Rain lulls baby right to sleep.”
Whipping the steel door open, she smiled companionably and said, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Camil scratched his jowls, the pricks of stubble on his sunken cheeks, and asked her to be careful on the stairs.
The door slammed shut behind her, sending an echo through the stairwell. She clamped her umbrella under her armpit and heeded his advice, holding the railing as she climbed to the second floor where he had laid out mats so the tenants wouldn’t slip and break their necks.
When she entered her threadbare apartment — weathered hardwood floors, peeling wall paint, sooty window sills, and tarnished appliances, though she cleaned regularly and kept the place homey — her ears perked up, but by some miracle her baby, Gregory, wasn’t crying.
Her mother, Nora wasted no time setting the baby monitor on the end table, springing off the couch, and making herself useful, all the while her dainty features pinched with marked concern.
“You didn’t take any detours, did you?” she asked as she took the plastic bag from Danny.
It was a loaded question, but she said, “No, Ma,” knowing that the truth would only incite an argument.
Danny started towards the living room. Her galoshes snicked over the wooden floor, which reminded her to kick them off.
“You went to Kumar’s on Ditmas, right?” Nora went on, helping Danny out of her raincoat once she’d rounded back. Gingerly, she shook the coat free of rain, holding it away from herself so she wouldn’t sprinkle her cardigan or corduroys — Nora liked to keep her clothes nice since, in her words, she didn’t have much. “Diapers are fifteen cents less there, I told you that.”
“Yes, Ma, I went to Kumar’s,” she lied.
After hanging the raincoat on a rack, she straightened Danny’s galoshes against the wall like a knowing chambermaid, and trailed after her into the living room, her every criticism veiled in tender, loving care. “Your hair is damp. You should’ve let me go out. Look at your jeans. They’re sopping wet.”
“I needed to stretch my legs,” she reminded her, scrunching her mop of graying-brown hair where it had grown out on top. She kept the sides short rather than covering the worst of the gray.
Nora padded around the islet and into the kitchen, set the wet plastic bag on the counter, and began filling a teakettle, angling the spout under the sink faucet.
“I didn’t tell you,” she said, shutting the water off and placing the kettle on the front burner. She turned the dial and after the stove clicked, a flare of fire puffed out and she went on, “Nance is free tomorrow night.”
“My hair looks fine,” she bristled softly. Bickering would wake the baby not that she wasn’t overdue for a trim.
“I want to treat you,” she pressed, facing Danny with her most convincing smile. “What’s wrong with getting the color done? She’ll give you a blow out and do your nails as well.”
Same old song and dance.
Danny’s appearance caused Nora almost physical pangs of remorse. She nagged constantly about her daughter’s lack of personal preening, a deficiency that Danny attributed to, quite frankly, not giving a crap about her looks, at least not since Tommy had walked out of her life.
Nora, by contrast, poured every last penny she earned into sprucing up and maintaining her modest style, which came as a strange sacrifice considering her babysitting wages.
“You deserve it,” she went on. “And Nance will come here so you don’t have to leave Gregory.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’d like to see you grow out your hair, get some long layers framing those big eyes of yours. You’re such a pretty girl, but no one would know it the way you carry yourself like a tomboy.”
“Thanks, Ma,” she said dryly, as she pulled the diapers from the plastic bag. She liked her hair short so perps couldn’t grab it, but that logic had never worked on her mother.
“And you could dress a little nicer, too,” Nora added. “Your stomach will go down. You can’t hide your figure under floppy sweaters forever. There’s a big Spring sale happening at K-Mart.”
Danny wasn’t in the habit of wearing sweaters because of her stomach, but because she had been lactating at the most inopportune times and was tired of changing her shirt.
Feeling boxed in to agreeing, she conceded, “Then let’s hit the sale,” and offered her mother a tired smile.
It was worth it just to see Nora brighten. She clapped her hands together then touched her blonde, wavy hair, which was also in need of a trim since it brushed her frail shoulders.
The kettle whistled so she plucked it off the burner, asking, “Chamomile or…” She was hunting through the cabinets now, her expression drooping at the slim options. “Well, chamomile is all you’ve got. Lipton or Stash?”
Danny clamped the diapers under her armpit, joined her mother at the counter, and hooked her free arm around Nora’s bird-brittle shoulders, teasing: “These options are terrible.”
At 5’10” Danny had a solid five inches on her mother so she nuzzled the top of her head, as Nora elbowed her, letting out a little laugh. “Oh, stop.”
“What would I do without you, Ma?” she said, starting for the baby’s room.
“You know I love helping out,” she called after her.
The room was dim and quiet except for the sound of rain ticking against the window. As cars drove along the street outside, the flare from their headlights crept across the green walls. She stepped softly so she wouldn’t wake her son and placed the diapers on the changing table then neared his crib.
He looked so small swaddled under his fleece blanket. His closed eyes were as puffy as the day he’d been born and in the three weeks since his birth he had lost the full head of dark hair that he’d come into the world with. It was hard to imagine this tiny creature would one day be a grown man, would one day tower over her, challenge her and love her and drive her crazy at times.
At the risk of stirring him, she gently caressed his bald head.
He felt cool.
It gave her pause.
Angling over him, she cupped his cheek.
He didn’t move.
His narrow mouth looked slack and as her heart rate spiked she placed her finger under his button nose.
He wasn’t breathing.
Her mind whirled, launching into sudden panic. She threw the blanket off and pressed her palm against his chest. She couldn’t feel his heart thump.
“Mom!” she yelled, scooping her son’s limp body out of the crib. He flopped against her chest, as Nora rushed into the room.
“What?”
“Call an ambulance!”
“What?” she asked, the urgency in Danny’s tone disorienting her. She groped for the light switch.
“Get the phone,” she ordered. “Call 911.”
As Nora rocketed down the hallway and into the living room, Danny began patting Gregory’s back and gently bouncing him. Her mind felt paralyzed. A sob stuttered out of her. This couldn’t be happening.
Her mother appeared in the doorway, phone pressed to her ear, a look of stunned dismay on her aged face, and in a confused frenzy she recited the address.
Danny shouted over her, “He’s not breathing!”
“He’s a newborn,” Nora relayed to the 911 operator then asked Danny, “Is he blue?”
“I can’t feel his heart! What happened? When did you last check on him?”
Nora began stammering, “He was quiet. I… I don’t know, not since before you went out.” Into the receiver she demanded, “Send help!”
“What do I do?” she pleaded, tone shrill and cracking, but when she locked eyes with her mother, Nora had no suggestions.
Nora’s mouth drifted open. The phone slipped out of her hand and hit the floor, busting apart.
As Danny held her infant tightly, sirens blaring in the distance, she knew it was too late.
***
Chapter One
PROSPECT PARK WAS cloaked in fog on this rainy day.
Situated in the middle of Brooklyn, the park was a 585-acre diamond of leafy trees, rolling hills, ballparks, and jogging trails.
Fat raindrops plopped down against treetops, soggy grass, and the asphalt path where Danny was walking. She held her umbrella high over her head so the brim wouldn’t block her view of the lake in the distance. The gun at her hip jostled under her raincoat, which she unbuttoned single-handedly in order to make her badge visible.
A crowd had gathered, pressing into yellow police tape that ran parallel to the shore. These onlookers obstructed Danny’s view of the crime scene where her lieutenant, Martin Franco, stood.
Franco angled his way through the residents and when he finally cleared the thick cluster, he walked briskly through the rain towards her.
No umbrella, his trench coat flapping in the wind, he glanced at her through his eyebrows.
Danny was surprised at how good it felt to see his face — those paternal dark eyes, his clenched jaw that suggested the Vic had left a bitter impression, his gelled black hair, olive skin tone, and prominent cheekbones that defied aging though he was pushing sixty.
A descendant of Cuban immigrants, Franco spoke with a faint, Latino lilt that to Danny had always sounded melodic compared to the clunky Brooklyn accent she had been cursed with.
As he neared her, slowing his step, he took a long, hard look at her and said, “I was hoping your first day back would be quiet.”
“When is it ever quiet?” she said amicably.
Skepticism was written all over his face. She hadn’t allowed a full week to lapse since the death of her son before calling Franco about returning to her position at the Special Victims Unit. Mourning at home had done nothing but fill her with multiplying anxieties. There was no point in riding out the remainder of her maternity leave. Tragically, she wasn’t a mother anymore, and if she wasn’t on the job, she would only wallow in bone-aching despair. She had to work, period.
He studied her, but knew better than to ask if she was okay. Instead he mentioned, “I’ve got a cousin down in Florida. Her baby died of SIDS as well.”
Deflecting, she glanced down at her sneakers and said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“There’s no making sense of it.”
She stared out at the crowd, the lake, the crime scene in-between, twisting her mouth to the side, then agreed, “No, there is not.”
When she met his gaze again, Franco afforded her the benefit of the doubt. His eyes told her that he was impressed with her resolve. Then he began leading her down the walking path towards the lake.
One minute Gregory had been alive and well. A healthy, albeit colicky baby boy. The next he had left this world. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He’d stopped breathing. When she’d heard the explanation, it had been so simple that it had boggled her mind. Sometimes babies stopped breathing. They died for no reason. She was supposed to accept it and go on living, move on, but she didn’t have it in her. It would be far easier to throw herself headlong into a world of other people’s tragedies — rape and homicide, special victims. She wanted to submerge herself in a brand new case. There was no greater distraction from her own misery than focusing on the hell that someone else hadn’t survived.
With authority, Franco parted the crowd, making room for Danny to cross through. A uniformed officer lifted the police tape and they ducked under it, stepping off asphalt and into mud.
Fifteen yards ahead, crime scene investigators worked in tandem with forensic specialists, taking photographs, setting out evidence identification markers, and keeping their distance from the Vic.
As Franco veered off to meet with one of the forensic analysts, Danny folded her umbrella, taking short strides over the slick mud so she wouldn’t slip.
When she reached the body, she took in an overall impression of the scene. The victim appeared to be middle-aged in the ballpark of fifty-five, female, naked, Nordic-looking with blonde wispy hair and pale skin. She was beautiful with a wide mouth, but there was something stern in the dead woman’s expression.
Lying face up, her head was sunken in the mud up to her ears, her legs splayed, the right stretching into the lake, the left bent to the side, exposing her genitals. She had a sturdy figure — thick limbs, round middle, legs like tree trunks — though she wasn’t overweight. In fact she was tall and if Danny had to guess, the woman might have been of German descent.
The cause of death wasn’t immediately obvious. She had no wounds — gunshot or otherwise.
Near her left hand and embedded in the mud were a handful of 5×8″ photographs, fanned out. Raindrops ticked at their glossy surfaces. Danny didn’t eye them, not yet. She was too engrossed in wondering about the dead woman, her stories and secrets, and how this grisly end might have come to pass. She examined her bone structure and the attitude it implied — judgment, perhaps to an Old Testament extent.
“Hey, Jill?” she called out, garnering the chief medical examiner’s attention.
Jill was squatting next to what could have been a shoeprint. The spritely forty-year old — the more gruesome the crime, the more pep in Jill’s step — lifted her head and wasted no time joining Danny.
Shielding her eyes from the rain, Jill gave Danny a little smile, then raked her fingernails through her sandy-blonde hair, which was pulled back in a low ponytail and two shades darker than usual thanks to the drizzle.
“Raped?” Danny asked, as she stood.
“The rain washed away any fluids,” said Jill regretfully as she squinted up at Danny who had a knack for towering over most women. “But there’s trauma consistent with forced penetration. I’ll know more when I examine her at the morgue.”
After staring down at the Vic for a pondering beat, she asked, “Cause of death?”
Jill crouched and pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves then slipped her hands under the Vic’s shoulders. With a grunt she made an honest attempt at rolling the body over, but it was too heavy.
Danny wriggled on a pair of gloves as well, which she kept in her raincoat pocket, and wedged her hands under the Vic’s torso. Together they muscled the body over and the dead woman fell to her stomach with a squishy thud.
Shouting, “Let’s photograph this,” over her shoulder to no particular investigator, Danny kept her eyes on the back of the woman’s head — a casserole of skull fragments and blood. The sight made her feel queasy, which was a testament to the vulgar nature of the crime since she historically had an iron stomach for such images.
“Blunt force trauma,” said Jill, pointing to the bloody gash in the skull. As muddy as it was, Jill had to examine the wound for a long moment, delicately parting the Vic’s hair to get a clearer look. Then she noted, “Probably struck more than once.”
As a forensic photographer angled over the body and snapped photos, Danny glanced around the immediate area and let out a balking groan. If it hadn’t been raining — weeks on end for that matter — they might have gotten lucky with a clear shoe print, a struggle pattern, something that would tell them the story of how this murder went down.
But as she scanned the shore, the muddy alcove, the drenched grass, nothing jumped out at her, not even a murder weapon. Regardless, she instructed the unis to bag and tag all fist-sized rocks they could find.
Complicating matters was the fact that there were no clothes in sight, which told her that the perp had taken the victim’s garments with him, or…
Her gaze landed on the wet photographs embedded in the mud beside Jill.
Danny made her way over to Jill, and as an afterthought, she asked, “No ID?”
A faint, derisive smile crept sideways across Jill’s face, her version of an answer — wouldn’t I tell you if I found her ID?
“Just being optimistic,” she said, as she crouched near the photographs. Danny called out to one of the unis that was collecting rocks as she had instructed, “Hey, can I get a few evidence bags?”
He was quick to fulfill the request, rain sliding down his blue poncho as he handed Danny a thin stack of plastic bags, after which he resumed trailing along the shore in search of possible weapons.
Danny peeled the first photograph out of the mud and, getting a good hard look at it, she hissed, “Damn” under her breath.
The photo was of a naked little boy.
Stripped of all clothing except for a pair of ratty socks, the little boy in the photo couldn’t have been a day older than four. He seemed to cower, looking up at the camera, as he tried to cover his private parts with his hands.
She shook an evidence bag open and slipped the photograph inside then moved on to the next one, which depicted the same boy — blonde, bedraggled hair, pale green and almost vacant eyes, gangly limbs, ribs poking through porcelain skin — this time lying naked on his back, a stained tile floor beneath him, a bathroom?
Each photo was more disturbing than the last, as she reviewed and bagged them one after the next.
A strange feeling came over her, but it wasn’t inspired by the vile images.
“Same perp,” said a man hovering behind her.
Without looking at him, she shot back, “I’m not interested in your guesses.”
“You sure about that?” he challenged, tone deep and confident.
She squinted up through the rain and found an African-American man with dark-black skin and a shaved head angling over her. His hands were planted on his knees, but he straightened up in what appeared to be a confrontational manner when Danny stood, coming into her full height.
He was stacked — a mountain of muscle — though dressed sharply in a crisp suit, his black parka open down the front. As she feared, there was a badge clipped to his belt, but she didn’t see a gun. The bulge under his left arm explained it, however. He must have been one of the few detectives left who still wore a shoulder holster, preferring a slow and sloppy cross-draw to the concise pull of whipping a weapon off his hip like the rest of the cops in this city.
When she hadn’t replied to his comment, he asked, “You think the killer caught her naked and getting off to some kiddie porn in the rain?”
Danny didn’t appreciate his sarcasm.
“You think women can’t be sex offenders?” she challenged.
“Offender? She’s the Vic,” he pointed out bluntly.
“You don’t think the two are related?”
Before he could answer, she stalked off through the rain, making a beeline for Franco who was waving in an ambulance, as a set of unis urged the crowd away from the police tape to make room.
“Tell me that’s not my new partner,” she said hotly, coming up behind her lieutenant.
Franco touched eyes with her briefly, as he held his hands up for the ambulance to stop.
“You knew this day was coming,” he told her. “Connolly timed his transfer with your maternity leave. You can’t say I sprung this on you.”
Something in Franco’s tone made her proceed warily so she pressed her mouth into a hard line, holding her tongue and wondering if she shouldn’t be more pissed at her old partner, Mick Connolly, for having concluded that enough is enough. Mick had reached a breaking point with the Special Victims Unit a few months back when they’d failed to locate a kidnapped girl. Danny had done everything in her power to get through to Mick and pull him out of the deep hole he’d sunken into. But it hadn’t worked. The girl had been assaulted and killed. It didn’t matter that they had caught the guy a moment later or that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Nothing could erase the loss.
“Carter Dobbs is a good detective,” he went on. “He put in ten years with Vice. Most cops want out after five, you know how rough it gets. He worked sex trafficking. You couldn’t ask for a better fit.”
“You’re selling this too hard,” she pointed out, stealing a glance at Carter who was taking an intrigued lap around the body — huge hands on his hips, barrel chest rising and falling, jaw clenched, put me in, coach!
Carter wasn’t a jock, but he certainly seemed at the athletic end of the spectrum, an imposing, strong, and stubborn creature who reminded her of a once-glorified yet washed up football hero that had every intention of resurrecting his heyday. Yet everything about his demeanor seemed to work against him, implying he had already failed. Regardless, she wondered who might be doting on him behind closed doors. He had that glimmer about him. The confidence of knowing he could attract any woman he wanted.
“Does he get how things work around here?” she asked, not liking her tone.
Franco’s brows knit together, as he said, “Make him get it. I’ve got my eye on him as well.”
She would have to be satisfied with that if for no other reason than Franco was starting off towards the unis and shouting, “I want this neighborhood canvassed. Someone had to have seen something. Start with Prospect Park Southwest and work your way east around the park. Every building, every apartment, every bodega and business.”
Near the shore, a pair of medics zipped up a black body bag, having set the victim inside. After hoisting the body onto a collapsed gurney, they lifted the rickety legs and began rolling it with slips and starts towards the back of the ambulance.
Danny called out, “Hey, Jill!”
Anticipating the question, the medical examiner said, “At least two hours.”
“You want me to call ahead?”
“No need. I should know enough by then. I’ll be ready for you.”
Thunder clapped overhead and the rain thickened, coming down in sheets. Danny pushed her umbrella open and rested the pole on her shoulder as she watched the forensic team scurry about, gathering up the evidence identification markers before they could wash away in a mudslide.
An eerie sense of peace came over her. No one would abuse or exploit her baby Gregory. No one would violate him. He would never be the victim of a crime. She would never find him scared and cowering in a photograph stained with mud, because he was already dead.
This was a small consolation that just might keep Danny from falling apart.
Carter hiked over and asked, “Do you go by Foster?”
Her monotone response was, “We’re on a first name basis at SVU,” and she didn’t look at him when she said it, as if the ambulance puttering away required her watchful eye.
“So Danielle?”
“Danny.” After a beat, she added, “Sex trafficking doesn’t hold the same weight as working with an individual victim. You’re lucky your first one’s dead. Living victims aren’t nearly as easy.”
“I’m not here to step on your toes,” he stated, hunching his shoulders against the downpour that had him drenched.
Suspending hostilities, she sighed and angled her umbrella over him.
“I’m sorry about your son,” he said.
If he was trying to thank her for sharing her umbrella or apologizing for their prior friction, she couldn’t tell.
She pressed her lips together. It was as much of a smile as she could muster.
“I have kids myself,” he offered.
Absently, Danny stared at where the body had been. “Whoever did this wanted to humiliate her,” she said, struck by a sudden thought.
Carter glanced in the same direction, adding, “I want to find that boy.”…
Read More “Lunatic” in Mira’s Book. Check it and her other books out through the affiliate buttons below.
Bio: Mira Gibson is a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. After majoring in Playwriting at Bard College, Mira was accepted into Youngblood, the playwrights group at Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC). Her one-act play Old Flame won the Samuel French Playwriting Competition and is available for licensing via Samuel French Play Publishers. Mira’s screenplay, Warfield, was produced by Summer Smoke Productions and is available to rent and buy on Amazon Prime. In addition to script writing, Mira has authored dozens of mystery novels. She lives in Oceanside, NY, where she continues to author novels, and run her small business, Mystery Royalty.
You can find her other wonderful books on her Amazon page through the affiliate button below.
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