The Hayloft
a 1950s mystery
by
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Some people must like to be the bearers of bad news. One of these is my younger brother, Archie. I had been practicing some preseason tennis on the indoor courts at
“Gary, Ralph’s dead,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion.
“What?” I asked, unable to believe my ears. Was this some kind of a joke?
“Ralph’s dead,” he said again. “He fell off the balcony in the
This couldn’t be true. Nobody fell off a balcony in real life. That sort of thing only happened in movies. Especially not my first cousin, Ralph, who was an all-star athlete and in complete control of his body at all times. But Archie, who liked practical jokes, looked pale and deadly serious. He obviously wasn’t kidding.
I raced into the kitchen where my mother and my other brother, Tom, were sitting at the table in our breakfast nook, looking stunned. Nobody sat here at this time of day. Tears rolled freely down my mother’s cheeks while she dabbed at them ineffectually with a tissue and sniffed as if she had a cold. Happy-go-lucky Tom looked as if he had lost his last friend.
“Is it true?” I asked them.
My mother nodded and then said, the words choking her, “We just got a phone call from Aunt Dorothy. It happened after an assembly in the auditorium. Apparently Ralph stayed behind and was there all alone.”
None of this made any sense. “Does Dad know?” I asked.
“I just called him,” Mother said. “He’s on his way home.”
My father was the brother of Aunt Dorothy and the uncle of Ralph. I asked more questions, but my mother had given me all the information she had. If it were anybody else, I might have almost believed it—but Ralph. Ralph was indestructible. He climbed the highest trees, dove off the biggest rocks. We were the same age, but he did everything a little bit better than I did—and a lot more flamboyantly.
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About the Book
Bobby sox, slowing dancing, bomb shelters, the communist conspiracy—and murder.
Within two weeks after starting his senior year of high school in the 1950s, Gary Blanchard finds himself kicked out of one school and attending another—the school where his cousin, Ralph, mysteriously died six months before. Ralph’s death was labeled an accident, but when
About the Author
After spending more than a quarter of a century as a pioneer in the computer industry, Alan Cook is well into his second career as a writer. Run into Trouble is a mystery/suspense novel about a footrace along the The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery and prize-winning Honeymoon for Three feature Gary Blanchard, first as a high school senior who has to solve the murder of his cousin, and ten years later as a bridegroom who gets more than he bargained for on his honeymoon. Hotline to Murder takes place at a crisis hotline in Bonita Beach, California. When a listener is murdered, Tony and Shahla team up to uncover the strange worlds of their callers and find the killer. His Lillian Morgan mysteries, Catch a Falling Knife and Thirteen Diamonds, explore the secrets of retirement communities. Lillian, a retired mathematics professor from Alan splits his time between writing and walking, another passion. His inspirational, prize-winning book, Walking the World: Memories and Adventures, has inspiration, [information and adventure in equal parts. He is also the author of Walking to Denver, a light-hearted, fictional account of a walk he did. Freedom’s Light: Quotations from History’s Champions of Freedom, contains quotations from some of our favorite historical figures about personal freedom. The Saga of Bill the Hermit is a narrative poem about a hermit who decides that the single life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Alan lives with his wife, Bonny, on a hill in