Devil at Dusk - installment number one

 Brooksie van Pelt 1950's Private Investigator
Photo by Dave Haworth: http://davesphotoexploration.wordpress.com/

Hello folks and welcome! Thank you so much for joining me for the very first installment of:

Devil at Dusk

A film noir tale of mystery and intrigue by:  Brooksie van Pelt.

Brooksie van Pelt private investigator gets a phone call in the middle of the day, it was February 17^th 1955. She will never forget this day for as long as she lives because this call changed her life. The call was from James Thomas Slater also known as JT. JT was a colleague at one time and her Godfather. She grew up around him and he was like an uncle.  JT was now living in a little town in Mississippi by the name of Laurel with his own private investigation firm right in down town. This town was small, quaint and behind the times by about 10 to 15 years. 

Brooksie was born and raised in Chicago Illinois. She was currently working as a private investigator in a firm in Chicago; it was a business partnership with a man by the name of Winslow Sloan. She got the call from JT just when she was about to step out for lunch. JT lets Brooksie know that he is in the hospital and is gravely ill. He had been investigating a serial killer that has been on the loose in the small town of Laurel, everybody has feared for their loved ones and some for themselves. He tells her to come as soon as possible that he needs her to take over the investigations for him while he is in the hospital. Then he says he may possibly know who the killer is but just as he is about to say the name the line goes dead…

Brooksie tries to reach JT at the hospital but she kept getting a recording that said: I am sorry but all circuits are busy now please try your call later. Brooksie goes to lunch with Winslow, during lunch she tells him about the call from JT. She tells him it is urgent, she has to go and does not know how long she will be. Winslow tells her to leave as soon as possible that he will handle things at the firm in Chicago. Brooksie stops off at her apartment and grabs about a week’s worth of clothing which she throws into a bag. She grabs her picnic basket and fills it with food. She makes hot tea to fill up two thermoses because it is cold outside. She pulls together a few other essentials and gets into the car. She goes to the nearest gas station to fill up because she has quite the trip to look forward to, she was looking at about 15 hours of driving ahead of her. She left the gas station at 2:30 pm and was on the road.

She took a pit stop a few hours later for a cup of Joe and a slice of apple pie in a sleepy little town, when done she got back in the car and proceeded to drive some more. She drove a couple more hours and finally made it to St. Louise, MO. It was 8 pm. She found a motel to stop over at to get some shut eye. Brooksie was pretty worked up from the day’s events so she pulled out her book to read for about an hour. Soon she drifted off into dream land…

Well folks this concludes part one of Devil at Dusk and thanks for joining us tonight! I will have another installment ready in a day or two.

*Please note this story is entirely a work of fiction however some things in the story parallel the life of the author such as the author’s nick name Brooksie van Pelt which is also the name of the main character in the story. The author’s real name is Lisa A. Wyss. Also back in 2000 the author Lisa A. Wyss aka Brooksie van Pelt had a legal investigators license for two years and worked as a private investigator during that time.