It's "What We're Writing" Week! Hank Tuesday

Continuing our new feature on Jungle Red: a week of posts on "What We're Writing." 

Hear the latest from:
Hallie Ephron Monday
Hank Phillippi Ryan Tuesday
Rhys Bowen Wednesday
Lucy Burdette Thursday
Deborah Crombie FridayJulia Spencer Fleming Saturday

Susan Elia MacNeal Sunday 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I'm trying to remember whose brilliant idea THIS was.  Showing our works in progress? I certainly would ever have agreed to...well, okay. Because we're among friends. And remember, this is a first draft.

You know I'm a TV reporter in--I almost said "real life"--and the main character of my books is  a newspaper reporter. Well, now she is--after she got fired from her TV job for protecting a source. People ask me--does your crime fiction come from your day job? 

Yes. And no. What happens to Jane Ryland is not my non-fiction life made into fiction. But her stresses, her passion, her complications, her experiences, her desire for a great story and for justice--all that's true.

I've done many stories about the housing crisis--in fact, our investigations have resulted in people getting their homes out of foreclosure (that one won an Emmy) and millions of dollars in refunds. Hmmm. This new book, TRUTH BE TOLD, takes the knowledge I gained from that research--and polishes, twists, expands and imagines.

How far would a person go to keep their home? What would if feel like if someone tried to take it? Or DID take it? How much of ourselves is wrapped up in that place that houses our families and our possessions and our histories? 

That's what I thought about while I was writing TRUTH BE TOLD.  
(Can you picture this scene? And in line 2, do I need "tall"?) 

    

                           TRUTH BE TOLD 

“I know it’s legal. But it’s terrible.” Jane Ryland winced as the Sandoval’s wooden bedframe hit the tall grass in the overgrown front yard and shattered into three jagged pieces. “The cops throwing someone’s stuff out the window. It’s right out of Dickens, you know? Eviction? There’s got to be a better way.”
Terrible facts. Great pictures.  A perfect newspaper story.  She turned to T.J. “You got that, right?”

T.J. didn’t take his eye from the viewfinder. “Rolling and recording,” he said.

A blue-shirted Suffolk County sheriff’s deputy--sleeves rolled up, buzz cut-- leaned out a front window, taking a swig from a plastic bottle. He shaded his eyes with one hand.

“First floor, all clear,” he called. Two uniforms comparing paperwork on the gravel driveway gave him a thumbs-up.  The Boston cops were detailed in, they’d explained to Jane, in case there were protesters. But no pickets or housing activists had appeared. Not even a curious neighbor. The deputy twisted the cap on the bottle, tossed the empty out the window. The bottle bounced on top of a brittle hedge, then disappeared into the browning grass.

“Oops,” he said. “I’m headed for the back.”

“That’s harsh,” T.J. muttered.

“You got it though, right?”  Jane knew it was a ‘moment’ for her story, revealing the deputy’s cavalier behavior while the Sandovals—she looked around, making sure the family hadn’t shown up—were off searching for a new place to live. The feds kept reporting the housing crisis was over. Tell that to the now-homeless Sandovals, crammed, temporarily they hoped, into a relative’s spare bedroom. Their modest ranch home in this cookie-cutter neighborhood was now an REO—real estate owned by Atlantic & Anchor Bank. The metal sign on the scrabby lawn said “foreclosed” in yellow block letters. Under the provisions of the Massachusetts Housing Court, the deputies were now in charge.

“Hey! Television! You can’t shoot here. It’s private property.”

Jane felt a hand clamp onto her bare arm. She twisted away, annoyed. Of course they could shoot.

 “Excuse me?” She eyed the guy’s three-piece pinstripe suit, ridiculous on a day like today. He must be melting. Still, being hot didn’t give him the right to be wrong. “We’re on the sidewalk. We can shoot whatever we can see and hear.”

Jane stashed her notebook into her totebag, then held out a hand, conciliatory. Maybe he knew something. “And not television.  Newspaper.  The new online edition. I’m Jane Ryland, from the Register.”

She paused. Lawyer, banker, bean counter, she predicted. For A & A Bank? Or the Sandovals? The Sandovals had already told her, on camera, how Elliot Sandoval had lost his construction job, and they were struggling on pregnant MaryLou’s day care salary. Struggling and failing.  

“I don’t care who you are.” The man crossed his arms over his chest, a chunky watch glinting, tortoise-shell sunglasses hiding his expression. “This is none of your business. You don’t tell your friend to shut off that camera, I’m telling the cops to stop you.”

You kidding me?  “Feel free, Mr.--?” Jane took her hand away. Felt a trickle of sweat down her back. Boston was baking in the throes of an unexpected May heat wave. Everyone was cranky. It was almost too hot to argue. “You’ll find we’re within our rights.”

The guy pulled out a phone. All she needed. And stupid, because the cops were right there. T.J. kept shooting, good for him.  Brand new at the Boston Register, T.J. Foy was hire number one in the paper’s fledgling on-line video news department. Jane was the first –and so far, only--reporter assigned.

“Here’s a chance to show off your years of TV experience,” the Register’s new city editor had insisted. “Make it work.”

Pleasing the new boss was never a bad thing, and truth be told, Jane could use a little employment security. She still suffered pangs from her unfair firing from Channel 11 a couple of years ago, but at least it didn’t haunt her every day. This was her new normal, especially now that newspapering was more like TV. “Multi-media,” her new editor called it.

“We’re doing a story on the housing crisis.” Jane smiled, trying again. “Remember the teenager who got killed last week on Springvale Street? Emily-Sue Ordway? Fell from a window, trying to get back into her parents’ foreclosed home?  We’re trying to show--it’s not about the houses so much as it is the people.”

“‘The people’ should pay their mortgage.” The man pointed to the clapboard house with his cell phone. “Then ‘the cops’ wouldn’t have to ‘remove’ their possessions.” 

Okay, so not a lawyer for the Sandovals.   But at least this jerk wasn’t dialing.

“Are you with A&A? With the bank?” Might as well be direct.

“That’s not any of--”

“Vitucci! Callum!” The deputy appeared in the open front door, one hand on each side of the doorjamb as if to keep himself upright. He held the screen door open with a foot. His smirk had vanished.  The two cops on the driveway alerted, inquiring.

“Huh? What’s up?” one asked.

“You getting this?” Jane whispered.  She didn’t want to ruin T.J.’s audio with her voice, but something was happening. Something the deputies hadn’t expected.

“Second floor. Back room.” The deputy pulled a radio from his belt pouch. Looked at it. Looked back at the cops. His shoulders sagged. “Shit.” 

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HANK: So it's at my editor now, and I'm waiting (with fingers crossed) for her thoughts. She always has terrific suggestions about how to make it better--and I cannot wait to hear them. Sidebar: I'm hearing from a couple of people that they loved THE WRONG GIRL--but had been apprehensive about reading it, since they were adopted or had family who had adopted--and thought it would be too disturbing. Did any of you think that?  Hey! No worries. It's true and honest and you'll like it. Really.