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A FREDERICA & CHLOE PICTURE BOOK MYSTERY

Episode I

A series of short stories featuring Frederika Jones

and Freddie’s cat Chloe

© Julie Gilbert Pollard

Hi! Call me Freddie. Full disclosure - I am not a mystery author, but I am an aficionado - my hobby is reading. Mysteries - gritty, cozy, procedural, tongue-in-cheek funny with smart-ass protagonists, the lot – I love them all. Some of my favorites often sport a Totally Cool Heroine. This TCH starts her day with an early-morning run, after which she looks and feels like a million bucks. This “author” (me ) is not cool, a bit out of shape, and doesn’t go running in the early hours before quickly showering and looking and feeling like said million bucks - ready for the day. So NOT cool - me, that is. My job in fact, is art – painting, teaching, and writing about - ART.

See that? I’ve only written a few lines and already I digress. I have a story to tell.

The day it all began, I’m minding my own business, though in truth it might not appear so – minding my own business, that is. Today is a perfect day for a plein air painter - gorgeous weather, brilliant light, rich mysterious shadows, beautiful inspiring scenery.

I’m sitting on the banks of a river, painting the scene in front of me that includes sun- and water-bathers. For a little action in my painting, I sometimes like to paint in a couple of people or animals. So, I’m studying the scene intently, stopping occasionally to take pictures in case I need to finish my painting later on in the studio. The sun’s position in the sky moves so quickly, changing the shadows, the colors, etc. The scene changes so fast it’s hard to get it all down on the canvas in one sitting.

Oh, sorry, if you’re not a painter yourself you may not care about all that. I guess I assume everyone is interested in the artistic process. :)

Anyway, there is a young couple splashing about in the water, just horsing around, you know? Kind of endearing the way she clutches at him in mock fear. As is my habit, I take a bunch of photos of them, hoping they don’t notice (I don't want to be intrusive) and wide-angle shots for the larger composition. Then back to painting – back and forth. I glance down at my palette to grab a dab of Cobalt Violet for the gorgeous shadows in the woods behind, change my mind on the color and swirl in a bit of Ultramarine to cool and darken my mixture.

At some point when I look up, the couple is gone. Damn. I really wanted them in my painting and was hoping they’d hang around for a while. Oh well, I had taken several pictures, had even set my camera on “burst” so as to capture some action shots.

You can probably see where this is going. I couldn’t, I didn’t. And I wake up in the hospital a couple days later wearing a turban of bandages. 

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"You have a 'slight' concussion", the doctor tells me. "Do you know how many fingers I’m holding up?" he asks with a grin. A doctor with a sense of humor - that’s fun. He’s young, kind and friendly. I hope he maintains this great bedside manner. Anyway, I bite. “I see a whole bunch of fingers waving at me”, I say – he’s holding up two fingers.

“Well, I guess you aren’t in any hurry to go home”, he says with another grin, “our five-star accommodations, no doubt! Seriously, you got quite a whack on the head last week, but I think you’re going to live” - yet another grin – “but it does look like you may have some headaches for a while, maybe a few cognitive issues."

He shows me the x-rays, explains the functions of the area of my brain that received the blow, yadda, yadda, yadda. It appears I’m in for some recovery time and a bit of therapy to get my head back in order.

What a pain.

As it turns out, I’m not the only person to have had bad luck that day.

A young man who was last seen at that very river, that very spot, at the same time on that very day, has gone missing. Or - was it his bad luck or that of his girlfriend who is now under suspicion for somehow causing said disappearance?

I have no information for the cops, even though I was right there watching, painting. Apparently, I was focused on my canvas at an extremely critical moment. But did my camera catch anything of consequence without my brain registering it?

But of course, my camera and phone are missing. They were not recovered with my inert - though still breathing - body. Someone took them.

We can all put 2 and 2 together, right? Will we come up with 4?

Or will we come up with 5, 7, 32? Hmmm...

But today I’m working on a possible chapter for my work-in-progress book. For this chapter, I'm introducing the topic of painting a white flower. Would you like to take a peek?

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PLEASE NOTE: the art chapters following a story segment are written and illustrated by Julie Gilbert Pollard, not Freddie. :) 

The STORIES are fictional - the CHAPTERS for “Freddie’s” book 

are true and valid!

To see the chapter Paint a White Orchid in Watercolor 

here is the Dropbox link to the PDF document:

JGPollard_Paint a White Orchid in Watercolor_for Story 1

Splashdown!

Brother & Sister Jumping off Grasshopper Point into Oak Creek

Speaking of a river...is this the river where Freddie got her concussion? Hmmm...

detail of 24x18 oil