by Joshilyn Jackson
In my twenties, I worked as a babysitter and a bartender, trying to figure out how to write novels on my own time. I passed the slow hours holding a sleeping baby or waiting for the stools to fill by reading procedurals: Elizabeth George, Ed McBain, Sarah Dreher, Micheal Connelly. I still love the kind of book where someone dogged (and probably hot and definitely with a messy personal life) puts clues together to figure out who did it, and how, and why. But I never tried to write one.
The idea intimidated me. I lean into domestic suspense, where a regular-style lady-person gets caught up in something dark. I can write these books because I am a regular-style lady-person with the kind of vivid imagination that leaps to worst case scenarios. I fill in the cracks with Google, and reading, and interviews, but some moments are so foreign and extreme that they require the kind of research I most adore; experiences. When I wanted to commit underwater crime in NEVER HAVE I EVER, for example, I consigned my claustrophobia to the Lord, strapped on a tank, and walked off a perfectly good boat into the ocean. When I sat down to write those action-packed scuba scenes, I had a real understanding of how my narrator felt and what her options were as she tried to survive.
Then I had the idea for MISSING SISTER. The opening scene leapt into my head fully formed, and I was instantly obsessed with it: A rookie cop at her first murder scene recognizes the victim lying in the congealing pool of his own blood. It’s one of the men she has long blamed for the death of her beloved twin. The cop, Penny, leaves the crime scene, internally distraught, and follows her nose to a blood-soaked blonde holding a boxcutter. Penny knows what she’s supposed to do, but the woman, Thalia Gray, says that this is not a story about a baby cop who stumbles across the murderer and gets to be a big damn hero. When Penny asks what the story is about, Thalia says one word. Sisters. Another cop is coming, and with no time to think it through, Penny does the unthinkable. She gives Thalia one word back: Run. Once Thalia Gray is in the wind, it’s clear her plan is far from finished. Penny follows her down a rabbit hole, desperate to discover why Thalia is systematically avenging Penny’s dead twin, and dizzyingly unsure what she will do about it.
I couldn’t get the scene out of my head. I’d been wanting to write about Thalia for a long time, but until Penny happened, I never had a story that could hold her. To make it work, Penny had to be a cop. I could read the police academy textbooks and interview cops, but just like scuba diving, it was so unfamiliar I felt that I had to experience it.
I started by attending Coffee With a Cop in my neighborhood. This was a community outreach program where we could get to know the police who worked our streets. I became a regular, interviewing every cop who showed up. One day, I met a young woman who told me she had taken this career path because as a child it bothered her so deeply that the world was unfair. She wanted to fix that. I knew right then she had told me something very important about Penny. She also told me about the Citizen’s Police Academy.
This is an informal program, open to anyone, where civilians learn how their local force runs its investigations. I signed up in the charming Georgia college town where the novel actually takes place. This allowed me to tour the actual squad room and offices that would become settings in the book. I got a firsthand look at how forensics teams work with the police, even attending an autopsy. I was nervous about this, but luckily it was a cold case involving a single human thigh bone that was unearthed near an overpass. Through lectures, tours, and hands-on experience, I learned the protocols. We did firearms training, too, and learned to kit up and carry standard equipment. We met the K-9 force, good boys all, and studied procedure using an actual closed case.
The most eye-opening experience was the day we spent on deadly force and threat assessment. It culminated with a roll-play exercise. They told us that a warehouse was being robbed and that the suspects were considered armed and dangerous. Then one by one, they sent us down a long dark hallway to an open door, alone. When my turn came, they put a gun in my hand and told me to clear the scene. The gun was not real, which is why this story doesn’t end with me accidentally shooting one of my fellow students, but the weight, the shape, the color, the trigger, and the safety mechanism made it feel authentic.
I went hesitantly forward until I entered a poorly lit office. A man stood by a desk, riffling in it. This was video, but in the dark room, it seemed quite real. I could feel my heartrate jacking up. I began yelling at him to show me his hands, to come out from behind the desk. I was supposed to sound calm and authoritative, but he started talking over me, explaining that he worked there, asking why was I yelling. He ignored my instructions and upped his volume, affronted that I would think of him as suspect. Then one of his hands came up, holding something, flashing silver.
For some of the students, the man was actually holding a gun. Some shot him. A couple of them hesitated, and they were “killed.” I got a different version, facing down a guy with poor social skills and a silver stapler. Reader, I shot him. I shot him a lot of times. I learned a lot in that class, most importantly that I would make a lousy cop. That was another thing that I could give to Penny. She tells you on page one that she’s a cop, and that this is the night learns that she is not cut out for it.
As a reader, I love it when a scene feels so real, it’s almost like I’m there. That’s the kind of scene I always aspire to write. If you ride along with Penny, what she thinks and feels comes from putting myself into a space where I could think and feel it all myself. It’s real. Or as close to real as I could get without risking prison time, anyway.
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