Deja New (Insighter #2)
MaryJanice Davidson
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Mozart loved poop jokes. It’s true! He wrote entire songs about poop, which he shared with his friends (sang to? played for? I must find the answer!). This is how I know my love of profanity means I’m really a genius. Mom and Dad, you were wrong about me. And my genius.
The great state of Illinois has dozens of prisons. For the purposes of this story, I’ve made up the Illinois Correctional Campus, mostly because this is a world that accommodates Insighters and past lives, and the rules are a little different than the prisons in our world. Also, I wanted a prison with an acronym that would be pronounced “ick.” Because who wouldn’t?
Edward Gorey wrote some of the most wonderful and disturbing stories in the history of the written word. He wrote about lonesome socks, but he also wrote about sociopaths who killed children. Even now, I have no idea if his work was intended for children (like the first three Harry Potter books) or adults (like the last three Harry Potter books).
I also have no idea if he was some kind of literary/theater snob (he wrote and directed shows for which he made papier-maché puppets, and he called this scripted weirdness Le Theatricule Stoique), or a giddy pop-culture fan (he liked The X-Files . . . and Buffy the Vampire Slayer!).
It’s probably some combo of all of them, but no one’s ever going to be sure. This is the same man whose work has earned major critical props over the years, which is cool, but he also described his work as “literary nonsense,” which is cooler.
Basically Mr. Gorey is a mystery to me, which is why he’s wonderful. Check out The Gashlycrumb Tinies or The Beastly Baby, if you get the chance, but be warned: His stories are like nachos. Strange, surreal nachos. You can’t stop with one.
Joseph Vacher was a French serial killer nicknamed l’éventreur du Sud-Est. (I don’t speak French, but I’m assuming that translates to something terrible.) Before he started killing people, he tried to kill himself, so it’s doubly tragic that he was better at murder than suicide. He committed violent acts against unsuspecting shepherds and was finally, thankfully caught in 1897 and executed the winter of 1898. He pled insanity, and while I’m no psychiatrist, I think the guy who heard voices, ate most of his meals out of garbage bins, and killed shepherds in a frenzy was completely crazy. Detective Kline is right to dismiss the idea of being Vacher in another life, but for all the wrong reasons.
The frosting Angela drools over exists and it’s specifically for frosting brownies. And not just regular brownies, still-hot-just-out-of-the-oven brownies. The secret ingredient is honey, which pulls it all together. It’s friggin’ exquisite.
Chief Leschi was chief of the Nisqually tribe in the 1800s, who were screwed out of land by the United States government. And when Chief Leschi dared protest, he was unjustly hanged in 1858 on a charge most people—the hangman included—knew was false. He went bravely to his death and was vindicated by a Historical Court of Inquiry and Justice in 2004. For whatever that’s worth.
The Donner Party. Wow. Where to even start? Their bravery? Their despair? The fact that virtually every decision they made was the wrong one? For those who don’t know, the Donner Party was a group of families trying to make a fresh start in the mid-nineteenth century. Through a series of setbacks, which at the time didn’t seem fatal but, like a Michael Crichton novel, were actually a domino effect of disaster, half the party died. The survivors lived through the disaster because they dined on oxen, horses, their own belts, and their dead travel companions.
The first of the dominos to flip: They got a late start. In the twenty-first century, a late start can mean missing a plane. Back in the day? It could cost you everything, up to and including your life. A late start meant they were trapped on the wrong side of the mountains when winter closed in.
The exciting new path guaranteed to be a shortcut? Not only was it a lie pitched by someone who had never taken that route, others tried to warn the Donner Party it was no good, but the warning letters—and there were several—either didn’t make it in time, were lost entirely, or—worst of all—were deliberately withheld.
Every chance the Donner Party had to abandon the new, untried route and get back on track with the old one was vetoed because, ironically, they felt they were losing too much time. Going back and getting reorganized would, they thought, be riskier than keeping with the “shortcut.” They told themselves the worst was over. Repeatedly.
For an excellent account of the entire horrifying/courageous story, give Ethan Rarick’s Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West a try. Mr. Rarick doesn’t sensationalize the lurid details, but he doesn’t pull any punches, either, which is exactly the treatment such a terrible, ultimately triumphant story of survival demands. Be warned: If you’re anything like me, you’ll need frequent breaks from the book to go stand in front of your fridge and reassure yourself with the sight of food. And you’ll probably want to wrap yourself in a blanket first.
BBC’s Sherlock fanfic is the greatest thing in the history of things. Archive of Our Own has devoured so many hours of my life. (Worth it.)
Colonel Charles Rowan was a British Army officer and the first Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. He and his bestie, Richard Mayne, helped found what would later be known as Scotland Yard. In three months, they found, hired, and trained close to a thousand men. (They must have been champion delegators. Or micromanagers.) In that same period of time, they arranged for uniforms, equipment, and a place to work (and furniture and supplies!) for their recruits, and then they really went to work. Rowan retired at the tender age of sixty-eight, but only because cancer made him.
Jesse Tafero, convicted murderer, was executed on May 4, 1990, in Raiford, Florida. He was exonerated later that year by his former friend, Walter Rhodes, who confessed to the murders of Highway Patrol Officer Phillip Black and Constable Donald Irwin. And though he lied to put two people behind bars, one of whom was executed, Mr. Rhodes served no additional time after confessing. For the purpose of this book, I moved Mr. Tafero’s execution back to May 1985.
All the past-life flashbacks are based on real historical events and people, but John Perry’s case is an amalgam of several instances when people were convicted of murder, only for the “victim” to show up alive and well. Which is horrifying to contemplate.
The rules for visiting ICC were taken directly from the Illinois Department of Corrections website.
I’ve somehow made it into my forties without having to visit anyone in prison (which, given my distinguished family history of trailer-park-dwelling substance abusers, is odd), so I was amazed at all the hoops visitors have to jump through to see incarcerated loved ones. I came away from my research with respect for the pain these families must endure year after year after year. I’d heard the cliché that “nobody does time alone,” and after researching this book, I think that’s true.
Elizabeth “Betty” Parris was nine when she started accusing random townsfolk of witchcraft. This “I’m bored and the Internet hasn’t been invented yet” mind-set led directly to seventy-two trials and twenty state-sanctioned murders. And though I gave her (and her father) a motive in my book, I don’t know if that’s how it all started.
I am not a historian and this is total, uneducated speculation, but I found it odd that many of those accused were rich, or owned multiple businesses, or had been in monetary disputes with their accusers’ families, or had vast land holdings in the area, and after their trials and deaths, a lot of townspeople made out pretty well.
Curious. And maybe just a coincidence.
The graveyards of history are littered with merciful men.