I’d love to specifically thank Nathanial White, attorney; Barbara Butcher, consultant for forensic and medicolegal investigation; Cheryl Brown, fundraising guru; Maureen Rossley, my wonderful guide of Saratoga Springs; Caleb White, police officer; Dr. Dale Atkins, psychologist; and Dr. Karen Rosenbaum, psychiatrist.
Thank you as well to my awesome agent, Sandy Dijkstra; to Mary Sasso of HarperCollins for all her creativity on the marketing front; and to my absolutely wonderful editor, Laura Brown, who has been a huge joy to work with every step of the way.
An Excerpt from the New Bailey Weggins Mystery
Read on for an excerpt from Kate White’s new Bailey Weggins mystery.
Chapter 1
I haven’t racked up a ton of regrets during my thirty-six years on the planet, but the few that I do have tend to have a sneaky, determined resilience. Every once in a while—say, when I’m working on a crime story that’s particularly soul-sucking and I’ve been on the road far longer than planned, holed up in Beyoncé-style luxury at a Best Western or DoubleTree Suites—one of them will resurface, like a lake snake coming up for air, raising its snout above the waterline and forcing me to stare it in the face.
I regret not knowing my father very well, though there was nothing I could have done about that one. He died when I was twelve of a brain aneurysm while on a fishing trip with a friend.
I regret (sorely) the two-and-a-half-year hand grenade of a marriage I embarked on in my late twenties, though I’m not sure I could have done much about that one either. Compulsive gamblers, I came to discover, don’t broadcast their obsession when they begin to woo you, nor the sordid little fact that they’ll be dipping into their work T&E—and your jewelry box—to help with the damage they incur.
And I regret that I spent over a year of my career covering celebrity crimes and misdemeanors (which generally involve the hurling of a cell phone at someone’s head) for one of those tabloid magazines that used to be like crack for women under fifty but are now so desperate for newsstand sales that they run fake headlines like “Kate Pregnant with Triplets—Palace Confirms.” My only defense about that one is that I needed the work.
There’s one regret, however, that I never had any good excuses for. When Jillian Lowe, a girl I’d become friends with sophomore year at Brown, was roused by a phone call on a Saturday morning in early April and informed that her parents and two younger siblings had been murdered, I did nothing to comfort her. Oh, wait, excuse me. I did send a sympathy card, and I also chipped in on a floral arrangement for the private funeral service, one of those standing sprays that make it look like the coffin’s just won the Kentucky Derby. But that was it. And my failure ate away at me for years.
So, needless to say, I was pretty floored when Jillian showed up looking for me on a July evening nearly sixteen years later.
I’d just conducted the final interview in a sell-out four-part series called Criminal Minds at the 92nd Street Y on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The Y’s programmer had approached me a few months before, thinking that I’d have a nice touch with the convicted felons they’d wrangled for the program, including an infamous inside trader who’d served seven years in prison. I jumped at the chance. This would be a way to keep momentum going on the true crime book I’d published back in in February.
As hoped, the series garnered a ton of buzz and I’d sold a boatload of books so far. However, enabling those felons to fluff their feathers in public had left me feeling sullied. I couldn’t wait to be done with the whole thing, and when the audience Q&A portion of the final evening was over, I bolted from the stage so fast that the female con artist I’d been interviewing had probably taken notes on my stunning escape strategy. I still had to sign books in the vestibule, but that would take only twenty minutes or so.
Jillian, it turned out, was waiting off to the left of the book table and a little behind me. I couldn’t see her face from where I was sitting, but I remember being aware of someone’s presence as I kept dashing off my signature. At signings there are always a few hoverers, people unwilling to cough up eighteen bucks for your book and yet eager to request the name of your agent or suggest that you might enjoy critiquing their 534-page unpublished manuscript free of charge.
I signed the last book, thanked the rep from the Y for her assistance, and jumped up to leave. Before I’d taken a step from the table, I could sense the person over my shoulder closing in. I turned, prepared to announce that I unfortunately had to fly.
“Hello, Bailey,” she said.