Write an opening line for this photograph (used with permission from New England Sister in Crime Sharon Daynard).
Edith: Well, damn! So that’s where I dropped the gun last fall after NRA-Billy met his unfortunate (but necessary) demise. Too bad I ran across it on my first date with pacifist Joey…
Julie: The final snow melt of the season always brought unexpected surprises. This, however, was a little unusual. Though it did help explain Margaret’s boyfriend’s disappearance.
Sherry: Planting the guns around this joke of a town was easy. The frenzied aftermath provided the distraction I needed to carry out my plan.
Jessie: While all the others on the playground worried about the rising local crime rates, Sarah wondered how much the antique gun would go for at auction.
Barb: Jacob stopped and leaned against his rake. His pulse raced and a feeling of euphoria rose in his chest. The tale he’d told himself since childhood must have been true. He wasn’t crazy after all.
Liz: Of all the things to fall out of my oversized purse when I was looking for a tissue, it had to be the murder weapon. And in front of the town’s nosiest neighbor, too.
Readers: Contribute your opening line in the comments!
Elizabeth scuffed along through the dead leaves, but she wasn’t really paying attention to where she was going. Daniel had hit her again that morning. She could feel her eye swelling. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see out of it. This was the last straw. He was never going to hit her again. But how could she stop him? When her toe hit something hard, she thought it was a rock, until she looked down and saw the answer to her prayers.
I love it, Dee!
I have founded many items wasting away in the yard, tree branches, paper wrappers, plastic cups, even a bullet shell or two, but a gun just laying about in public where anyone could see & a child playing out could pick up out of curiosity.
Crazy!
When she came upon this while cleaning out her mother’s basement it took her back to a spontaneous “come as you are” party her mother had hosted in the early 60s. Some neighbors came in pajamas, some in clothes soon destined for the rag bag. Who among her genial neighbors had dropped it and never claimed it and why had her mother kept it all these years?
Ooh, nice, Betsy.
Sam always found a lot of garbage in his acreage after the first day of hunting season, despite the many “no trespassing/no hunting signs” he’d hung. Empty Gatorade bottles, crumpled newspapers, crushed food wrappers. But this was a first.
Let’s hope so!
Ian and Chloe looked down, then looked at each other, then down again – this was not the sort of thing you expected to find on the set of Pride and Prejudice!
Ha! Perfect.
The weather was iffy but my golden, Pete, wanted to go out and run. So we did, which lead us to the surprise of the day. I expect my dog to find or dig up bones, or miscellaneous “treasures”, but a gun was certainly unexpected. Now what do I do?
Good question!
Joey left the toy gun where he knew she’d find it. A reminder he had her son and a threat to deliver the ransom on time.
Ooh, shivers, Ruth!
Not sure I can beat yours, but here goes…
Detective Inspector Ian Watts dropped the gun in the soft leaves and scuffed the soil with the toe of his shiny black loafer. They needed a murder weapon? Fine. Now they had one.
Nice!
I thought leaving the gun in the woods on the other side of town was the safest way to get rid of it. How did it turn up again so quickly? At least I remembered to wipe my prints off it first. Or did I?
oooh creepy!
Let’s hope so!
That’ll teach the inconsiderate SOB to use that infernal leaf blower right next to my bedroom window on a Sunday morning! Talk about annoying neighbors. I guess I showed him! I shot the damn thing. Killed it dead, then tossed the gun right on top of his damn messy mulch pile. That’ll teach him!
*snort*
What IS that weird looking thing? Oh.
Oh…!
She looked down at the gun and wondered if it could be the weapon no one had found last fall. That witch of a woman hadn’t been convicted during the mistrial and was now sitting in the hospital acting like the crazed nut case she really was. Oh, wouldn’t it be perfect justice if this was it. Cassie felt around in her pockets for something to pick it up with. All she found was one very crumpled napkin from lunch. It looked like she was going to use a stick and her sweater. but, feeling her phone in her pocket, she thought better of it and dialed 911. The police already considered her a busy body. Why make it worse?
Good one!
Discarded among the thawing snow banks and dead leaves, a lost gun and a stolen life are the cruelest spring flowers.
What an interesting piece of hardware! Oh, wait! It’s a gun? I really MUST get new glasses…