A mere acknowledgment to Dean Spradlin would not do justice to his involvement in this project. Inspiration for a central thread of this novel—Lynette’s various belongings—came directly from examining items which Dean brought to my attention. Together, we pored over those scattered bits and pieces looking for clues as to what, if anything, a few might have in common. Some items apparently are not related and were simply in the same dumpster in about 1994.
I should also point out that the real life items were not in an overnighter, but were scooped from the dumpster and tossed into two small boxes. Dean truly did acquire these items from dumpster divers he knew, but the details of that transaction are irrelevant to our purposes. To protect these treasures, Dean placed them in an old suitcase he already owned. He asserts that only one other person besides me had ever viewed these belongings since he’d obtained them.
Dean’s excitement about this material was contagious and we both eagerly examined everything in the suitcase. Me for the first time with fresh eyes, and him for the umpteenth time with renewed zeal. Some of the crucial clues were found by Dean and some of the critical links were made by me. It was truly a team effort to uncover as much of this individual’s story as we could.
There actually was a silent movie actress who inspired my character, Lynette Harte. Many years after Lizette Thorne’s death, a family storage facility was broken into. Several valuables were stolen and someone—whether the thieves themselves or possibly the storage facility’s employees—actually did discard items like those I’ve described. It’s also very possible the dumpster contained many other Thorne family pieces which Dean never even saw. Through our—may I say, immodestly—brilliant detective work, we truly did establish links among four distinct sets of material. I cannot adequately describe our excitement over those discoveries.
To Dean and me, these were not merely papers and pictures which had been scattered and trashed. In someone’s lifetime, they had been carefully maintained and valued... and now were, we believed, the sole surviving representation of this actress’s life and career. [We later learned the family still possessed other of Mrs. Thorne’s mementos.] We both found it nearly miraculous that any of this material was discovered—and recovered from that filthy dumpster—and that we had the honor of reassembling what we could.
It’s being valued... again.
As we marveled at this fascinating woman and obviously talented actress—Lizette Thorne really did work in the same studio as Chaplin during 1916—we both developed a hunger to “do something” with these scattered belongings. Dean maintains he just hoped I would appreciate them, as he did. But I suspect he knew, deep down, that his interest would be contagious and I’d have to write about it... somehow.
And, as Dean likely predicted, I was affected by the life of this actress. My brain played with the notion—off and on for a couple of weeks—of my new story being about someone finding such discarded material. But I could not arrive at any well-paced plot which might develop from that rather lackluster springboard. And I worried that unfamiliar characters poring over the musty contents of a dusty suitcase would be a very slow opening chapter. [Am I right?]
So, I needed to establish the characters doing something else—hopefully interesting—before I could expect readers to care what was inside the suitcase. The main characters needed to be already at work on something exciting before they even cracked open the overnighter.
As a central thread, I selected an ominous mystery many decades removed—the “Hanging of Jones”. Yes, an unsigned, handwritten hanging story manuscript actually exists, and was acquired by Dean in this same batch of items. We later learned it was written by Frank Thorne Jr., only child of the actress, Lizette Thorne. The real manuscript was also missing its final page or pages. [I have abridged Thorne’s story for use in my novel; Frank Thorne’s daughter granted me permission to use it.]
Only after establishing the mystery and introducing the fictional villain could I allow my characters to discover the treasures in this overnighter. I hope the reader senses some of the same excitement which Dean and I felt as we stood in his garage and inspected nearly every scrap.
During this entire project, each of us has begun to feel as though we know this former actress. And we have—quite intentionally—dealt very respectfully with her life and legacy.
I was not ready to begin another novel manuscript at that point—since I needed to work on revisions of two other novels and prepare queries for both. And I kept telling this to Dean. But he’d just give me that look... like he knew I was going to drop everything and write this.
And I have.
And I’m glad.
****
Dean did not do any writing on this novel. However, he has been very helpful in providing plausible background material, helping me fix various plot problems, and reading—or listening—and providing feedback. But primarily, he encouraged me to write a story inspired by the belongings of this actress.
His praise and encouragement concerning one of my previous novel manuscripts led directly to the afternoon in his garage when we jointly explored the contents of the suitcase... which contains so much about the life of a fascinating individual.
Inevitably, I suppose—because of our extensive give and take about this overnighter’s contents—Dean also became the inspiration for one of my fictional characters in this story. I’ll leave it to readers to guess which character.
One final statement before I close this portion. My character Jeff McCabe was inspired by my dear friend Jeff McDay, who died of pancreatic cancer near the end of 2004. We were library co-workers for several years and prayer partners for some twelve years. My friend did not, however, resemble Denzel Washington as much as Jeff resembled a young Martin Luther King Jr.