Laura Eriksson Mystery

  Book 6 Songs From the Woods

  Chapter 01

  Bibliomancers Chapter 292

  Bianca stood; she was sitting at the end of the table farthest from the kitchen. The other end was reserved for Amy; as the cook, she was often up and down during dinner, and it was easier for her to get up and move into the kitchen without disturbing anyone at the table. Bianca usually sat next to me, where we could talk over our next big plan. Me for the bookstore, Bianca for the writer’s collective.

  But tonight she had a job to do; we were welcoming eight new authors to the collective, which brought our permanent membership to sixteen. Not bad—we doubled in size. That meant that the writer's monthly ‘rent’ would be going down by a substantial amount. The eight new writers would, of course, add to the food costs, and also Bianca insisted that Amy hire a part-time cook to help out in the kitchen. There would also be two writers assigned to clean up at every meal now instead of the one that handled it before. Two bathrooms on each floor meant that sharing wouldn’t be any more difficult than before.

  Bianca smiled at the group. “Before I begin the self-introductions, we have a little business that needs to be discussed.”

  Universal groans were heard at the table. Writers, at least the writers in our collective—I can’t speak to those out in the wider world—hate business discussions. Usually because business discussions always seem to cost them money. It’s not that they are horribly cheap; most of them are just not rich. Our writers have a tendency to write for themselves first and an audience second. It gives them strong and unique voices; what it doesn’t give them is cash in the pocket like writing the very latest trends. Romantasy and hockey romances are two of the hottest right now.

  Bianca likes to start with a little sugar usually, a technique she undoubtedly learned on Wall Street. But she surprised me by opening with Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper.

  “I want you all to think carefully about that story. I’m asking you to be the ant when it would be oh so easy to be the grasshopper. But hear me out before you object. Our current monthly board is based on food, power, water, and property taxes. Laura, with some brilliant negotiations, has had property taxes waived for a full three years. Pretty great, right? But what if I were to say to you that we might, through careful management, not have to pay property taxes ever again?"

  Ezra piped up, “I’d say, what is the catch? The town is surely never going to agree to that.”

  Bianca smiled at him, “No, you are correct, Ezra, the government never lowers the tax burden. No, we would be investing in our own future. The plan is very simple. We all have contracts through the end of the year. I’m proposing that we sign three-year extensions at exactly the same rate.”

  “But what about the waived property taxes? Shouldn't the fee be going down substantially?” Magdalena protested.

  “Yes,” Bianca countered, “that is exactly what the grasshopper would do. But we can do better. We are in a position that will almost certainly never be repeated. If we don’t just blow the savings. If we all pay exactly what we are paying now. The money goes into thirty-year government bonds that compound, and we run two weeks of writer's workshops every month for the next three years, every writer having to participate in at least one, and then we will have enough money in escrow to never have to pay taxes again. Unless they go up substantially higher than the rate of inflation. Writers getting a free ride will work both workshops. You’ll give up a little more time in lieu of a financial contribution. If we ran Writer Workshops three times a month instead of two, we’d have the money we need in two or two and a half years. If we ran them four times a month, forty-eight times a year, we’d have the money in a year and a half.”

  “That would seriously cut into our writing time,” Em insisted.

  Bianca countered, “No, it wouldn’t because we have twice as many writers now, so if we have four writers in charge of each workshop, two old members and two rookie members, and we run three workshops a month, it would only be one each month and a quarter for each of us. So some months you wouldn’t be doing any. If we ran them four times a month, then you would only have to work one per month for around a year and a half. Then, all things being equal, the only bills we’ll have will be food, water, power, and internet. It would be like putting money into a pension plan. Except you don’t have to pay anything extra. You wouldn’t have to worry about that next sale. You’d be free.”

  Monique asked, “We have twice as many writers, but won’t that just double the price of everything?”

  “No, Monique, because a lot of that is fixed costs. Taxes are based on the building, not the number of occupants, and power will be negligible. Heat is our biggest cost there, and it doesn’t cost any more to heat the extra people. Same with the internet. Speaking of the internet, if you have large files you want to download, please schedule them for the middle of the night. When I say "large files," I mean full movies or entire seasons of TV shows. If you don’t know how to schedule, just ask either Ezra or Laura; they both can teach you how. It's really simple, and then the internet is never bogged down. We have the very best, fastest plan, but nearly twenty people trying to download the entire season of Friends at the same time—well, that would bog down any network. Food and water will go up, but won’t double. Don’t forget about your income tax deduction; part of the co-op fee is tax deductible, as this isn’t just your home, it is also your workplace. The more you pay in co-op fees, the less you pay in taxes. Even if you move out after five years, you will still save money under this plan. I’m willing to show each of you on a spreadsheet just how much you’ll save. If you leave after four years, you’ll just about break even. After three, you would be better off taking the grasshopper approach. But there is something else to consider. Giving back to the writer’s cooperative, this tax deal will outlive us all; future generations will just have to cover living expenses. If we think it’s hard for writers now, what happens when AI outstrips human intelligence? For now let’s have our new housemates introduce themselves; we’ll vote on this issue tomorrow night. Please come to my room tomorrow, and I can show you individually why this will be personally good for you.”

  A woman with darn green hair and a nose ring stood up. I can’t wait to introduce her to Anais; the nose ring will drive her right up a wall. “Hi, I’m Rachel Wierzbicki. I’m a staff writer for RetroRock magazine. I mostly do pieces on rock legends that are past their prime and welcome any attention from the media at all. Right now we are both a print and digital magazine, but according to my editor, we are likely going to lose the magazine sometime this year. I’m really grateful to have gotten into the Cooperative when I did. I’m hoping to branch out into fiction; I think nonfiction is likely to be eaten up by AI. Right now, I’m safe because a lot of musicians, even those that want the publicity, won’t allow themselves to be interviewed by an AI. Musicians are more terrified by AI than most of the writers I know. So for a little while at least my job is safe. That’s about it from me; I look forward to getting to know you all. Oh, and my favorite band is Jethro Tull; Anderson’s flute playing has always blown me away.”

  A tall, thin blond woman stood up; her hair was wild, like she just got out of bed and hadn’t combed it yet, but it was early evening, so unless she was more of a night owl than I am, wild hair is just her style. She was so soft-spoken I could barely hear her. “Hello, my name is Sabrina Scott; I write science fiction. I used to write military science fiction, but even though I had made some sales, I didn’t much care for it. But one day I read ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers. For those who may not be familiar, it’s what I would call cozy science fiction. I stopped writing the military science fiction book I had been working on and switched to a more character-based storytelling style, leaving behind the fast-paced plotting of a war story. I think I fell in love with writing again. I’m not sure what my agent will have to say. Her advice is always the same. Stay the course, write what sells. I hope she’s wrong; I look forward to getting to know you all.”

  A guy stood up wearing a tuxedo t-shirt; my guess is another science fiction or possibly a fantasy author. “Hi, I’m Toby Brandt. I write math and computer programming books. It looks like AI will be putting programmers out of work, and maybe I have a few more years where humans might retain a lead in mathematics. But I always wanted to write, so I’ve been trying to branch out. I have articles out to two different wine and spirits websites. I don’t see how AI could possibly write articles that require test buds. I’m also going to try and branch out into fiction as well. Pleased to meet you all.”

  A woman in her early fifties stood up next. “Good evening, everyone. My name is Radmila Matas. I write historical romances, mostly set in the medieval, Roman, or Greek era. I was a history major that decided that teaching was not for me, so I decided to use all that knowledge to write semi-accurate historical romances. My agent has been for the past two or three years pushing me to write a Romantasy series. So far I have resisted," she smiled at us all. “But after listening to you all talk about AI, perhaps I should reconsider, maybe a fantasy set in Ancient Greece. I’m wondering how a machine can write romance when it has no desires. Would it be plausible? But no matter the size of my audience, I’ll continue to write; I wouldn’t know what else to do.”

  A thirty-something, black-haired young woman stood up. “Hey, nice to meet you all. My name is Eivora Garcia, and I’m a true crime writer. I’m also thinking of starting a podcast to help promote my writing.” I’ll have to hook her up with Lucy; Lucy mentioned doing a book podcast to help promote the three stores. “I look forward to getting to know you all, especially you, Laura. Bianca tells me you are a real-life sleuth. Maybe you could come on my podcast and tell my listeners about some of your cases.” I glared at Bianca.

  “I’ve never really thought of doing anything like that, Eivora. I would be interested in watching you make a podcast, though. As would our store manager; she wants to do a podcast for the store.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A twenty-something caromed out of her chair. “Hi, I’m Riley McMahon. I write time travel romances. Usually with a modern-day female main character, who gets transported back to some horrific period of history. Where she meets some alpha male, and she somehow manages to rid him of his worst impulses. I guess you could call it feminist, as the cavemen always blossom into supportive males utterly devoted to the heroine. I guess you could call it fantasy too, because, as if that would really happen.” She laughed and sat back down. I liked her instantly.

  Tyson Ricci stood up; he had lost some weight since the last time I saw him. Though he was still quite heavy. He is also very short, which probably makes the extra weight he carries more pronounced. The last time he was here, I had lured him because I thought that he might have been a suspect in a murder that had occurred at the store. So I asked him to meet me as part of an interview process to join the collective. I had told Bianca that he was nice and might be a good fit here. I’m glad that she agreed.

  “Hello, everyone, nice to meet you all. I’m Tyson Ricci, and I have a steady, albeit part-time, writing gig writing for Adirondack Lives. But I’ve always wanted a chance to write longer fiction in either mystery or psychological horror, or even the thriller genre. I just want to thank you all for giving me that opportunity.”

  Last but not least, Bobby Dalgaard stood up. She had been a staple around the store while the Superb Lake Placid Bake-Off was being produced on our grounds. That was the reason that we had a three-year waiver on property taxes. I had considered the possibility that Bobby might have been a criminal too. But it turns out that she wasn't a criminal. Just a victim of her mother’s constant bullying.

  “Hello to everyone I haven’t met before. I’m Bobby Dalgaard, and I write fan fiction. A week ago I couldn’t even say that out loud; now I just admitted it to a whole party of people at once. I never thought that I was a writer. But Laura told me if I strung words together, I was a writer.” She laughed. “Laura said that doesn’t mean that you are a good writer, just that I was a writer. So I decided that I want to branch out. I still plan to keep updating my fan fiction. But I want to create my own world and meet new characters and let them play in my world. I may not be very good, but I’ll never know unless I try, and I really want to try.”

  After Bobby sat down, Bianca stood up. “Welcome. I know that Amy made a cake to welcome you all, so we will get to dessert in just a minute after one final order of business. I just want to remind the old writer and inform the new writers that in three days the ‘Book Faire’ begins. Tables are only ten dollars a day for collective members. Tables can be shared, so you could sell your books for as little as five dollars a day. Nothing sells books better than personalized signed editions. Now let’s cut that cake.”

  ***

  I was in the store by five of ten; it was my responsibility to open this morning. Lucy, who I usually leave all that stuff to, wasn’t coming into the store until after she gave her talk on computer security down at the library. We had recently started offering free malware scans, and we wanted people to donate old tech to us. So we could clear off their personal information, reset the device, and then load them with free e-books or audiobooks.

  Lis, Luke, and Zoe came in all at the same time, just before we opened. Behind them came a stream of customers. We were semi-famous now after Urge, Willow’s psychedelic school bus turned mobile bookstore, had become an internet phenomenon. Thanks to her father turning the ceiling of the bus into a trippy salute to Roger Dean, the artist behind all of Yes’s album art. Once Urge got his own social media account, the customers just started pouring in. To urge the two stores that co-owned him. At Willow's ‘Rabbit Hole’ in Woodstock, NY, she sells only nonfiction and has every book listed in the Whole Earth Catalog in stock. Now you know how Urge got his name. I was the other co-owner of my store ‘Genre’s’ in Lake Placid.

  So once Urge started posting, quotes and photos of his customers and staff and his artwork went viral, and our business just doesn’t let up. Two customers came with laptops to scan. I started one, and Luke handled the other.

  “So you aren’t going to charge me anything, even if it has a virus. You’ll just clean it for free.”

  “Yes, sir, it’s a completely free service.”

  “But what’s the catch? There is always a catch." The man studied me, ready to catch me in a lie or some kind of trick.

  “I swear there is no trick; we also take donations of old hardware, clear off personal data, reset the device, and load them up with free e-books and audiobooks if the device has audio capabilities.”

  “But why?”

  “We’ve been open here in Lake Placid for more than fifty years; it’s beautiful and clean here. We want to stop old usable tech from winding up in the landfill. Leaching deadly chemicals into the ground and our water supply. We understand that people don’t have to come into our store anymore to buy books; they can buy books on their couch at home. So we try to treat our customers like friends and neighbors, something Amazon will never be able to do. We have a physical eBook section, just over there. Where you can browse the eBooks just like they were paperbacks. Most of the eBooks are free; some of them are free, but we ask you to tip the author after you read the book if you think it was worth it. For all of the eBooks that we charge for, ninety percent of the price goes directly to the author. Those are the ones our publishing company publishes.”

  “We have some old Kindles and cellphones at home; do you want them?”

  “Sure, we’ll clean off any of your personal info, then reset it. We have a list of people waiting for e-readers, and cellphones make great audio-book players.”

  “Your store only sells fiction.”

  “Yes, but we have a video link to our sister store in Woodstock; all they sell is nonfiction. They usually can ship it out the same day, so you’ll have it the next day at your house, or you can pick it up here if you’d prefer.”

  “You own that hippie bus too, don’t you?”

  “Yes, his name is Urge, the bus that is, and we’re part owners. It’ll be here on Thursday; the books are all used and a great bargain. Part of the Book Fair, it runs from Thursday afternoon till Tuesday evening."

  His laptop beeped; he didn’t have any malware. I printed out the report and handed it to him along with his laptop.

  “It’s really no charge.”

  I smiled, “No charge. Have a great day.”

  He smiled back. “Thanks, I’ll bring you those kindles, I promise.”

  Lucy darted in about forty minutes later; her eyes gleamed brightly. “Laura, I did just like you said. I began by telling them that we clean malware off of machines for free. Then I explained that Windows 10 was now dangerous to use because Microsoft stopped supporting it. I told them how to upgrade to Windows Eleven and explained that if they are running old hardware, then Microsoft won’t let them upgrade. Then I explained that we would load free operating systems and give them lessons on how to use their computers once they booted into Linux Mint. I’m not sure they all completely understood everything. But when I asked for questions, most of them were whys, not many hows. So I expect that we will see some of them for scans, and maybe some of them will come in for the new operating systems as well.”

  “Good, did you schedule another talk for next week with Sarah?”

  “Yes, next Wednesday after the Book Fair is over, I expect we will be pretty busy until then.”

  “Yeah, that was good thinking. I have to go down to the library and talk to Sarah about the book fair. Would you please get an empty bookcase from the cellar and clean it up? Then put it somewhere prominent, either close to the front door or near the counter. I want to start renting banned books. But I need Sarah to give me a list of the most recent books that people are trying to ban. We’re going to rent them anonymously for ten cents a day. But we need some rules; rule number one is rental is at the discretion of management.”

  “Why would we restrict access to the books, Laura? I don’t get it. Aren’t these exactly what you want to distribute?”

  “If a grammar school kid wandered into the romance section and picked up a Romantasy title where the heroine has sex with dragons, but the kid thinks he is getting a new book like The Hobbit. We wouldn’t sell it to him, because that isn’t really the book that he or she wants. So we use our discretion every day, but for the rental books, it’s a little more subtle reasoning. I’ll let you think about it. Rule Two: Only one rental at a time, unless waived by the management. You think about discretion; I have to call Anais and make sure I'm not asking any of you to break the law.”

  I went up to my room and did a little research about recently challenged books in libraries and school libraries. I compiled a list and printed it out. Then I called Anais.

  "Hello, Hippie, and before you ask, I do not plan on committing any felonies today, so don’t even ask.”

  “Anais, you make it sound like the only time I call you is to commit a crime; you know that just isn’t true. As a matter of fact, the reason that I am calling you is to make sure that I’m not going to break any laws.”

  “I don’t believe you; I know how manipulative you can be. I think you are trying to trick me. You are of the school of thought that it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. You clarifying the law in advance of breaking it just doesn’t ring true.”

  “It’s true, Anais, I don’t want my staff to get in trouble for following my rules. You are right; if it was just me, I’d do what was right, not what was strictly legal.”

  "See, Laura, that’s where you get into trouble; there is no ‘strictly legal.' The law is the law; it has two states, legal and illegal. You love computers, so I know that you understand digital. Yes, no, on, off, legal, illegal. What exact law do you want your staff to break for you?”

  “I want to rent out banned books to teenagers for ten cents a day.”

  "Alright, as long as they are legal for sale in New York State and not restricted in some way to minors, like porno magazines. Tell me you are not going to be renting out porno magazines in the name of free speech, Hippie.”

  “Of course not, I want to get the books to the kids who want access to them that have been banned out of homophobia, racism, and trans rights. Those kinds of things, but I don’t want to rent them out to adults who can afford to purchase them. I’ll be more than happy to sell the books to them. I’m not trying to restrict the books at all. But is that illegal?"

  “I see what you are doing, and if you are careful, it will be legal. But you can’t be seen to discriminate, especially on the basis of religion. That’s not what you are trying to do in some roundabout way, is it? Because they could sue you in court and take that store away from you. You can’t discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or marital status. If you do, I don’t care how good a lawyer Eve is; they sue you for all you have, the main thing being the store. Then they will turn it into some kind of Christian nationalist bookstore just to rub your face in it. Got it, just follow these simple rules and you are good to go. Hell, you might even make a profit.”

  “I don’t want to make a profit.”

  “I know, Hippie; that's what makes it hilarious. Let’s get Amy and go to the brewpub tonight; you can tell me how it’s working out for you.”