Mystery book - Death on the Lakeshore by Clarence Parker

My desire to become a writer goes back to my childhood. From the time that I was a teenager, I felt the need to explore ideas and to also record them.

My need to write became more urgent during the time of my mother’s tragic death at the age of 73. While writing the book about her accident and death, “In Search Of Justice”, I realized that I had great potential to indeed become a writer.

When I first started to write about Mother’s death, I was in my mid 40’s and 73 seemed kind of old to me. Today at almost 71, I find that 73 is a very young age and in Mother’s case and also mine, a very young and energetic age.

The computer age has been a real asset to my writing. As I start to type, I often feel like someone is directing my writing and I just plunge in and let my thoughts flow. Knowing that I can easily go back and make changes helps me a great deal.

I hope to go on writing and publishing many more books. By the fall of 2006, I will have completed 5 of my own books and also published 3 books by other authors.

I have learned that in writing books, it is very important to have good reviewing and editing of your drafts by others. After working on a book for several years, such as “In Search Of Justice”, it becomes almost impossible to remain objective.

I have been very fortunate to have my sister-in-law, Hélène Pépin Thomas as an excellent editor. She is a natural and has been the main reason why I have been able to move forward in bringing my books to completion after struggling with them for many years.

This is the first in a series based on the humorous mystery adventures of Avard Hale. The momentum for writing these books came from having written a true story. This story was of the senseless killing of my mother by a drunk driver and the subsequent miscarriage of justice. The intent of that book was to write a true story about Mother’s death but to use fictitious names.

I later rewrote the book using actual names. I have not yet tried to have this book published. I may just keep it for my family and in particular for the grandchildren and a few friends. The objective is that some day they might realize, how sometimes, there may be gross miscarriages of justice in our democratic society. I may even publish it at a future date.

While writing my first book, I used the fictitious name of Avard Hale. Avard is my middle name and Hale, a variation of my mother’s maiden name. In writing my mystery books, I adapted Avard Hale as the main character’s name. In a way, I have given Avard Hale many of my eccentricities and have also made up a few.

In my true-life experience, I along with my brother (a former RCMP officer) became extensively involved with the investigation of the events associated with our mother’s death. We tried to determine what actually happened to her. Our investigation helped to raise my naturally mysterious conscience level.

While John Bath was busy securing his cottage for the winter, his mind was busily thinking about the information that he had received about the Mafia the previous morning. When or why the Mafia had come to the sleepy Maritime city of Freetown, nobody really knows for sure. It just seemed that, one day they were there and everybody knew about them. With Freetown being a small provincial, seacoast capital city, having some adjacent mining interests, one would have to wonder why the Mafia was interested at all. The one thing that made any sense to John Bath was that they were using the legitimate interests of Freetown to make their illegal money legal.

As the sky darkened and the air turned cold and clammy, a shiver went up John’s back. “It feels like death,” he thought. John now worked in earnest, trying to get everything done. He was concentrating so hard on what he was doing that he didn’t see or hear a car approaching and stopping at the entrance to his cottage. He did notice a crow land on a tree limb across the lake as it let out three loud caws. Again the shivers ran up his back. “Just like three knocks on death’s door,” he laughingly thought.

His chores now completed, John straightened up and looked out over the lake. “Well lake, I guess I won’t be seeing you until next year,” he thought. With that, he was about to turn around and head back to his car. Suddenly he heard a movement and saw a flash of bright colors out of the corner of his eye. John found himself falling back toward the lake, his head ringing in agony. “This can’t be happening! I can’t be stopped now, not when I’m so close!” As he approached what was to be certain death, his only thoughts were of stopping the Mafia. As the blows continued to rain down on him, he was about to lose consciousness when he saw his attacker. “My God,” he yelled. “It can’t be you!” As the blows continued, John felt merciful oblivion.

Across the lake, Avard Hale was busy working away at his cottage. Most people would call Avard skinny. He, however, liked to think of himself as slim. Having high energy, he really enjoyed building things. Unfortunately, his results were not always of the highest quality. His brother-in-law, being a skilled tradesman, often referred to him as the sledgehammer handyman. Avard’s current project was the addition of 300 square feet to his cottage, named Hales Shack, by his wife Doris. She named it this, after overhearing some kids telling their children that they didn’t have a cottage, they had a shack

As he gazed absentmindedly across the water, Avard became aware that some kind of activity was taking place on the far side of the lake. This was the property owned by the Bath family. He wasn’t sure what exactly was happening. He did notice that there was an unusual color pattern. However, being in his goofed off mentality and not wearing his glasses, he did not pay much attention to it. Without his glasses, Avard couldn’t see things very clearly at a distance.

Avard started to practice playing his music on his mouthpiece, as he drove by the entrance to the Johnson farm. He didn’t have much time for practicing because he was always on the go and he also played the trumpet in a band. He always carried his mouthpiece with him. He would blow on his mouthpiece while he was alone driving the car or going for a walk. He found the mouthpiece to be almost as good as the trumpet in keeping his lip muscles in shape. As he drove past the Johnson farm, blowing on his mouthpiece, he noticed a car in their driveway. He didn’t notice anyone around the car but hadn’t really looked for someone. He thought that the smoke coming from the chimney looked unusual.