by N.M. Cedeño
First, some good news! My story entitled “A Matter of Trust” was published in Black Cat Weekly #110 on October 8 via editor Michael Bracken. The story features genetic genealogy private investigator Maya Laster who first appeared in “Disappearance of a Serial Spouse” in Black Cat Weekly #79 in March 2023. In this, her second published case, Maya is working to help her client, Bob Rolland, prove that he’s an heir to a forgotten trust fund, when violence ensues. With Bob’s life hanging in the balance, Maya races to discover who might want to stop him from claiming his inheritance.
“A Matter of Trust” is my first story inspired by a click-bait title that I didn’t click. The article was something about a dead billionaire leaving everything in trust for his reincarnated self to inherit. I imagined a vast fortune sitting forever, waiting for an heir to step forward. I thought, what if someone left everything in trust for possible future grandchildren? And what if the only link to the information about the trust died without telling anyone? From those seeds grew a story of lost family relationships requiring a genetic genealogist to reconnect the missing pieces.
So, for those who always ask: yes, story ideas really do come from everywhere.
Next, the bad news. Two events within five days gave me ample material to consider for use in future stories, and I would not wish either of them on anyone.
First, The Hail.
One Sunday evening, my neighborhood was hit by baseball-sized hail. If you’ve never experienced a storm like that, it’s hard to imagine the sheer power behind that kind of precipitation. Windshields and car rear windows exploded when hit by enormous hail falling at terminal velocity. Coming down in sheets like rain, pummeling everything in its path, it left its mark everywhere, from the soil, the concrete, and the asphalt to cars, roofs, light fixtures, patio furniture, and trees. It even killed birds.
My family hid in a closet, listening to what sounded like a bombardment. The weather notification that baseball-sized hail was coming arrived on our phones five minutes after we had already retreated to the closet with the dog because of the fury of the storm. The warning came far too late to try to protect anything outside, but did confirm our instinct to take cover away from windows.
Next, The SWATTING.
Four days after the storm, someone decided to commit a crime against the community by calling in a false attack at my children’s high school. For those who don’t know, per the Oxford dictionary, “swatting” is defined as “the action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.” Seven different agencies responded to the high school in full gear, expecting to find an active shooter.
Someone intentionally terrorized hundreds of teachers and almost four thousand students at one school. It’s an enormous high school with a dozen buildings spread over a quarter mile wide. People in one building have no idea what may be happening in another building. So when the school locked down, many kids assumed the worst was happening somewhere and texted their parents from hiding places in darkened rooms and storage areas.
The number of swatting incidents in the US rose so quickly in the past few years that the FBI has created a database to aid in tracking and investigating them. Three high schools in two districts in my area were “swatted” in one day. In my youth such incidents could be ascribed to individual teenagers playing pranks or trying to avoid a test. While that may explain a few isolated cases, evidence suggests that many of the recent swatting incidents are linked to common perpetrators, many of whom may not be in the US. Terrorists have realized that they can sow fear with a spoofed phone call.
Once I have some distance from these events and can put them in perspective, details from one or both incidents may appear in a story. For the moment, I’m still cleaning up the mess.
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N. M. Cedeño is a short story writer and novelist living in Texas. She is active in Sisters in Crime- Heart of Texas Chapter and is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Find out more at nmcedeno.com
Ink-Stained Wretches 