All-Important Research: Jo Hiestad
All-Important Research
Jo has written numerous mysteries set in England. SAINTED MURDER, 12TH NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS, PEARS BEFORE SWINE, DEATH OF AN ORDINARY GUY, and HORNS OF A DILEMMA (April 2007), all published by Hilliard & Harris. This story is about how she does the most-important research expected by mystery readers.
A Slippery Business
By Jo Hiestand
Golden Age mystery author Ngaio Marsh researched the murder method for her book Scales of Justice in her front garden, stabbing a variety of large melons with a shooting stick to observe the “head wounds” created by the stick’s pointed tip.
Perhaps my method of death wasn’t as exotic, but my murder setting needed a bit of research. And, not being a burglar or home handyperson, I didn’t possess the necessary weapon. So I trotted over to my unsuspecting hardware store to purchase the tool for my trade. (Do I get tax credit for this?)
I needed to know what it felt like trying to budge a one-ton boulder, slipping in the mud, using a crowbar. Of course, in my book, HORNS OF A DILEMMA, there are a dozen beefy guys employed for the task, using not only crowbars but also stout ropes. But even as a lone female, I felt I could at least get the feel of the undertaking.
HORNS OF A DILEMMA, the fifth novel in the Taylor & Graham English series, revolves around the custom of turning the Devil’s Stone, that hefty rock I was trying to emulate, however minutely on this side of the Atlantic, with an equally hefty fallen pine tree. The Devil’s Stone lies in a churchyard and must be shifted every year on Ash Wednesday. Failure to do so puts the village in harm’s way. The real English village of Shebbear, in Devon, has moved their Devil’s Stone every year since the custom began (documented back to 1454 at least), except for one year during WWI. That year misfortune did strike the village and nearby farms, so maybe there’s something to the custom.
Even though I’ve been to England nearly a dozen times and have lived there, I never participated in or saw that Devil’s Stone turning, so I had to do the best I could with my backyard, pine tree and lone crow bar.
Trying to imitate the conditions of my fictional murder scene, I soaked the ground around the tree trunk with water, creating a mud puddle a hippo would be pleased to wallow in. I let the water seep into the ground for about an hour, then flooded the area again, hoping to get a deep, gooey mess. I did this twice more. Around 10:00 p.m., dressed in old clothes (that was easy—that’s all I have) I went outside armed with my crowbar and a lit lantern. I walked around the trunk, figuring out the best method of attack. Even though I’d chopped off the major limbs, the remaining small branches—complete with needles, pinecones and a bird’s nest—still looked like my hair on waking in the morning. But I figured if I got the trunk to roll, the branches near the top would just go along for the ride instead of acting as some type of arboreal brake. Since there was really no “better side” to the thing, I set down the lantern, put on my leather work gloves and grabbed the crowbar.
I will swear until my dying day that as soon as I bent down to crowbar the tree the night got darker and the wind whipped up. Was that a coyote watching me just beyond the reach of the lantern rays? And that noise overheard—surely that was just an owl or bat. Raccoons don’t attack humans, do they?
I’m sure I presented an odd sight to anyone who might have been gazing outside at that moment. A woman, illuminated by a lantern, trying to shift a 30-foot pine tree with a crow bar, sliding around in mud (and where’d she get mud—it hadn’t rained for weeks) in the dark of night, mumbling mild expletives. I’m still amazed no one phoned the police, reporting I was either burying a body or bludgeoning someone to death. Maybe cops really have seen it all.
I’ve never killed anyone outside my novels, but after I tired of “turning the stone,” I whacked the bale of hay (a remnant of my Guy Fawkes’ effigy stuffing and bonfire) several times, pretending it was my book’s victim. It’s surprising how exhausting murder can be….
I jabbed at the tree trunk long enough to fall several times, muddy most of my clothes and hair, skin my knuckles, and strain my back and shoulders (my chiropractor loves it when I do this kind of research). Even though it wasn’t exactly a one-ton stone in a churchyard, at least I now knew what my characters would feel. And the way my muscles were screaming, it was most likely bloody murder.
Horns of a Dilemma, Jo A. Hiestand, (April 2007, Hilliard & Harris, $30.95) http://www.JoHiestand.com