Hello. My name is Tucker, and I am a Maltese. Gigi is still recovering from her birthday party. I am a heavyweight, so I bounced back well. Maltese can party with the best of canines. Even the Great Mastiff…although there was a Borzoi once who really gave me a run for my money. Anyhoo, I am going to introduce Gigi’s blog today and make her proud of me. I will do a good job. Today is Chapter Eleven in Gigi’s story. Did you know the number eleven can symbolize chaos and disorder? I guess that explains why Gigi went so crazy on her birthday. It may also be why it is an important number in my novelist’s book. Oh, that’s right! That’s right! Our novelist wanted me to remind you that her fifth and final book in her Musicology book series called Musicology: The Epiquad is releasing next Friday, June 11^th. It is called The Epiquad because it is an epilogue in four parts…

Shut up! You are not supposed to tell them that, you insulant cur! That is a secret!

It is?

Yes! Good Afternoon. I am Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce Chapter Eleven of my story…

I told them that already. Aren’t you proud of me? I introduced your story.

You did WHAT? This is my story! MY story…good heavens I think I might just have the vapors.

Let me catch you…there, there. You should go lie down. You will feel better. Okay, here is Chapter Eleven of What I Found in the Trunk.

 

What I Found in the Trunk

By

Gigi the parti poodle

“Okay, Gary, here’s your coffee,” Rusty said when he and Bennet returned to the Buick.

“How long was I out?” Gary asked from the back seat yawning and stretching.

“Two hours,” he said handing him his java.

“Two hours? What did you guys do for two hours?”

“We walked around Leavenworth while it was closed,” Bennet said. “I showed Rusty Front Street and then we walked down some of the back streets before we bought the coffee. We sat down on one of those Bavarian benches and ate our hipster toast.”

“What time is it now?”

“Almost nine.”

“Almost nine! Rune could have skipped town by now!”

“Naw,” Rusty said. “She’s still in Leavenworth.”

“You’d better be right. I’m on the lamb here. My dad’s expecting me at work and I’m not there. I need to find Rune, or Durwin and his psycho posse are going to find me first.”

“Hey, I was beaten up by these guys at the car lot and I know they mean business.”

“Look, we’re wasting time here. Let’s get out of the car and start looking for Rune.”

“I think we should split up,” Bennet said.

“We can’t split up,” Rusty said. “Gary’s the only one who knows what she looks like.”

“Dude, have we thought about what we’re going to do when we find her?”

“Kidnap her.”

“What?!” Gary yelled. “Are you crazy?!”

“We need to show her we mean business.”

“We could go to prison for that!”

“Only if we get caught.”

“We’re going to get caught! And we’re going to go to prison!”

“I have to concur with Russ here,” Bennet said.

“Seriously?!”

“They were going to kidnap you so it’s only fair.”

“Yeah,” Rusty agreed. “That’ll really stick it to Durwin and his buds.”

“No one is going to kidnap anyone!” Gary said. “We’re going to get out of this car right now and find her and talk to her and convince her to give Durwin back whatever it is she took.”

“It’s your call, man but the whole kidnapping thing sounds pretty good right now.”

After window shopping on Front Street, Rune regretted not having anything but coffee at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. She partially blamed her hunger on the apple strudel and its otherworldly fragrance. She should have eaten breakfast instead of just having coffee in the quaint little brunch room at the Orbital Inn. Now she found herself coming upon The Danish Bakery with its red sign with the golden pretzel on it. In fact, the whole establishment was decorated with pretzels. She headed inside and stood looking at the wooden and slanted glass case filled with delicacies including Danishes, strudel, turnovers, kringle, cream bollen, Bavarian waffles and of course pretzels.

“I’ll take one of your giant pretzels with salt,” she told the plump blonde woman behind the counter.

“Anything else?” the woman asked.

“One of those strawberry and cream Bavarian waffles too, please. And a large cup of coffee.”

“Not espresso?”

“No, just a large coffee with cream and sugar…for here.” The woman took the pretzel and pastries from the case and set them on a plate while her assistant took one of the paper coffee-cups with a pretzel design on it and poured her a coffee with cream and sugar.

Rune paid with cash, left a tip, thanked the women, and headed for a green topped and wood tone two-person table at the back of the establishment and sat in the chair with her back to the entrance. She did not notice the three men walk in and immediately occupy a table near the window facing the street. But they saw her. They watched her wolf down the pretzel before slowing down to sip her coffee.

“I think we should join her,” Gary said. “If we sit down at her table, we can try and quietly get the information we need.”

“She’s not going to tell you anything,” Rusty said. “We need to stick to the kidnapping plan.”

“Dudes,” Bennet said. “We can’t waste time arguing here. We need to make our move.”

“I’m going to go talk to her,” Gary said.

“But she’ll see your face.”

“She’s already seen my face. I bought her car.”

“She might not remember you. How many times have you bought something from a salesperson and remembered their face?”

“How should I know? Sometimes I remember and sometimes I don’t. I’m going in.”

Gary rose from the table and made a beeline for Rune.

Rune lifted her coffee to take another sip and saw the guy she’d sold her car to glaring down at her. Gary watched her eyes widen as she slowly set down her coffee.

“Do you remember me?” he asked her.

My Books

You can check out my books Chicane and the first four installments in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist! and Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. The fifth and final book of the Musicology series, Musicology: The Epiquad will be releasing next month on Friday, June 11, 2021. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!!!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: TWIN PEAKS (1990)-Netflix

The landmark television show Twin Peaks has been running on Netflix for ten years. On June 30^th, 2021, it will end its decade long run. The show which originally ran for only two seasons on ABC (Showtime ran the limited-edition reboot Twin Peaks: The Return set 25 years later) is set here in the pacific northwest in Washington State primarily in North Bend. David Lynch was born in Misoula, Montana and his family moved around quite a lot spending some of his childhood in Sandpoint, Idaho, Spokane, Washington (short a not long a), and Boise, Idaho as well as few other other smaller towns around the country. He has an uncanny way of perfectly placing his finger on the pulse of the great Northwest.

If you are a native Washingtonian or a native Northwesterner (Washington, Idaho, and Oregon) the story of Laura Palmer and the inhabitants of Twin Peaks are not dissimilar to Northwesterners and I for one have never found the show strange. One of the great moments in the pilot is where Benjamin Horne and Leland Palmer are talking to a group of would-be land development investors and there is a Norwegian interpreter. A lot of Scandinavian descendants live here or at least did at the time the show first aired which makes that scene quite funny. Now to be fair, the concept of Laura Palmer comes from the East Coast which is one of the elements co-creator Mark Frost (Hillstreet Blues writer) brought to the story. Laura is based on a woman named Hazel Irene Drew, an attractive blue-eyed blonde who was mysteriously bludgeoned in 1908 at the age of twenty (Laura Palmer is seventeen) and just like Laura, her body was found washed ashore. Her murder was never solved. Frost’s grandmother used to tell the story to him as a cautionary tale. Much like Laura, Hazel had many secrets and was involved with several men as well as having a cocaine habit. Cocaine is mentioned about one of the pieces of evidence in the pilot. I might also mention touching the side of the nose can mean a sign of secrecy or conspiracy if you happen to be in the red room.

Washington State is unfortunately known for its serial killers. At the time of the show there was one in one of Lynch’s hometowns called The Spokane Killer who killed from 1975 until 1997. He was later found to be Robert Lee Yates Jr. who had a predilection for picking up prostitutes, shooting them in the head and then engaging in postmortem sex. Another Spokane serial killer is Randy Woodfield (The I-5 Killer), Stanley Bernson who is thought to have killed 30 Northwest women during the late seventies and into the eighties. And The .22 Caliber Killer who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of three women the same year the show came out. His identity remains unknown. Other well-known serial killers who hunted in Washington State were Gary Ridgeway (The Green River Killer), Kenneth Bianchi (The Hillside Strangler) and Theodore Robert Bundy (Ted Bundy). Note the middle name Robert which is a name ironically often shortened to Bob.