17 Resentment Court: Chapter Two
17 Resentment Court, David Stoesz’s new crime novel, zips and zings through the alleys, restaurants, and corporate offices of the rainy Northwest metropolis of Plankton — with a few murders along the way. Per a canine compact between the Shocker’s Blue Dog and Mouse House Books’ CEO Mosley, the Shocker Review will be serially publishing the first three chapters. Longtime editor and former Elliott Bay Books bookseller Diane Sepanski calls 17 Resentment Court “a dementedly funny noir.” Mosley calls it “a tremendous achievement, a feather in my fur.” You can buy it in paper or ebook. Enjoy!
2. Helen Cranberry
Resentment Court is a row of connected units, each with its own little fenced-in square of brown grass. A little boy in front of unit sixteen watched me walk up to unit seventeen.
“Are you a social worker?” he asked over the fence.
“No,” I said, making my hand into a gun. “I kill social workers.”
I knocked on the door and Helen Cranberry opened it. I said, “Thank you for taking the time for this,” and handed her Frank Boise’s card.
We sat down in her crappy living room. She answered my questions and I wrote down what she said in a little notebook with one of my Frank Boise pens.
“Dad was on sabbatical. That was part of the problem. He wasn’t busy enough.”
“He get into trouble?”
“No.” She looked down. “I mean, other than with the group.”
“The group?”
She swallowed. “Do we have to pretend you don’t know?”
I tried to think of a good answer to that. “Of course not.” I wrote The group in smooth, silky lines. She said she didn’t know how he’d spent the last week of his life. “When I got pregnant with Hector,” she said, nodding at an unplanned baby asleep by a rack of liquor, “he took it badly, and we weren’t talking much at the end.”
“How long have you lived here, Ms. Cranberry?”
“You mean why do I live in a dump when my parents have money?”
“I’m sorry if — ”
“No, it’s fine. Things aren’t great with my mom, either. She wasn’t too good even before Dad died. The divorce fucked her up.”
“Did your dad have friends at the university?”
“Not really. Except Sandbag.”
“Sandbag?”
“Sandy Sandbag.” Helen shifted on the sofa. “The chair of his department. Stood by him after everyone else had concluded he was an asshole.”
“He wasn’t popular?”
“He did things his own way.”
I wrote Was an asshole and clicked my Frank Boise pen closed. “What else can you tell me about him?”
“He was . . . a dork.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “He had his own little names for everything. When we biked around What Lake, there was a part where we always went off the path and rode through the trees. He called it the ‘Interlude of Bumpiness.’ When I cleaned out his apartment I found a map of Plankton I drew when I was ten. With his names for all the places . . .” She covered her face.
“Can I get you . . .?”
She shook her head and waved me off. I told her I was sorry and stood up.
Back outside, the little boy was still standing in front of unit sixteen. He held out a piece of paper.
“Rick Fernmancer,” it said in careful letters. “He’s a social worker,” the boy said. “I want you to kill him.”
“What’s your name?”
“Noah.”
“People call you No?” He shook his head. “You got any money, No?”
He rummaged in his pocket and came out with a five-dollar bill. I took it from him and snapped it. A piece of lint arced over his head. “I’ll be honest with you, No. This isn’t a lot of money. But I’ll see what I can do.” I put the money and the piece of paper that said Rick Fernmancer in my pocket with the Boise card I’d taken back from Helen Cranberry’s coffee table while she was busy crying. Noah was still watching as I rounded the corner at the end of the row of brown squares of grass.
17 Resentment Court is available in physical and digital editions.
