A Haunting at Marianwood by Dash Hammond Book Six E.M. Munsch - Mystery - Interview
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Interview with Dash Hammond
Tell us about your newest
book:
A Haunting at Marianwood is the latest in the Dash Hammond series and a bit of
a departure for my core characters. Dash Hammond is a retired Army colonel who
was in a near-fatal automobile accident while visiting Fort Knox, Kentucky. His
injuries forced him into retirement and he swore he’d never cross the Ohio
River into Kentucky again.
Best laid plans. Sister
Miriam Patrice grew up next door to the Hammond family in Clover Pointe, Ohio,
on Lake Erie. She is now head of an order of sisters housed in Kentucky.
Strange things start to happen at the Motherhouse and Miriam Patrice (or Miri
Pat to her old neighbors) decides to call on her younger brother William who
happens to be Dash’s best friend.
Dash, his wife and young son,
travel with William (Billy) to the Motherhouse to stop whatever/whoever is
hassling Miri Pat. Stories of ghosts from long ago fill their heads but Dash is
certain nothing otherworldly is involved.
Author’s aside: I attended a
small women’s college in Kentucky more than a few years ago. I learned of
several ghosts who walked the halls. Not that I believed these stories but I
did hasten by the staircase where the headless nun haunted. Over the years I
have met many grads of small women’s colleges and unfailingly talk of the
ghosts who roamed these campuses became the main topic. A Haunting at
Marianwood is my tip of the hat to my old college and to all the women’s
colleges and their resident ghosts.
Tell us about your writing
career:
I have always been a reader,
then I became a career bookseller so books are in my blood. Like everyone who
has read a book, I thought of writing one. And it is not easy.
Over the many years of my
life, I have started many books. I jotted down opening lines, paragraphs and
the first five to ten pages or composed on a word processor or laptop. And then
another scene totally unrelated to anything previously written would pop into
my brain. I’d pull out another notebook to start another work.
It wasn’t until I joined the
Sisters in Crime chapter in Louisville that I began to take my writing career
seriously, well, sort of seriously. The chapter did give me an outlet to
show/tell my scribblings. And all agreed, I did a mean opening line/paragraph.
I had fallen into a huge rose
bush in my little garden. While I picked my way out of the bush, one thorn at a
time, I wondered how a writer would write this scene. I went inside, sat down
and began. Of course, there had to be more than the poor unfortunate woman who
tumbled into the bush. A male neighbor who had never met the new resident next
door sees her struggle to free herself. He walks over, stoops down and asks her
‘Are you alright?’ And so it begins.
The chapter loved it. Would
not let me put it in a drawer. I had to tell them what happened next. And I
loved writing the Dash and Annie story. I laughed so hard at their
misadventures. The story is a bit of mystery with a bit of romance OR a bit of
romance with a bit of mystery.
The Price of Being
Neighborly was born out of that
thorny experience. The original story was edited by me and the critique group,
so it is different than the original story. But it is still a fun read.
One last note about my
‘career,’ I started Price when I was sixty-nine and was determined to get it in
hand by my seventieth birthday. To that end, I self-published, figuring I might
not live long enough to shop it around.
What was your most
difficult scene to write:
My current work-in-progress
is the seventh in the Dash Hammond series. As the series evolved, more of
Dash’s family join the cast of characters. The generation immediately preceding
Dash consists of his uncle Tom, a priest, his father, the middle son, and an
Uncle Joe, the youngest son killed in Vietnam.
For a myriad of reasons, Dash
didn’t have a good relationship with his father, the county sheriff. He felt
his father, who he calls Owen and not dad, was too busy with everyone else in
the county, ignoring his youngest son.
In steps Father Tom who
serves as the stabilizing force in the family and for many in the parish and
county. He’s wise, non-judgmental and, for Dash, very supportive and will at
least try to understand him.
For some reason, I decided
that Father Tom would die in book seven. I wrote the scene and then started on
the eulogy Dash would give at the funeral. I cried copious tears, still get
teary thinking of it.
After telling a friend about
this, she advised me to let Tom live. He can die in another book if needs be.
So those pages are in a drawer.
What are you working on
now:
I am currently working on the seventh Dash Hammond
book. Dash becomes the sole heir to the estate of his mother’s very distant
cousin, Maud. She is a very little old Irish lady. Dash has few memories of her
and several are not good. Maud has written a letter for Dash’s eyes only in
which she asks him to undertake a task, but only after shocking him with a
revelation which again colors his perception of her. But, as Dash is a good
man, he takes on the task. After all, he is A Reliable Man, the working
title. I hope to publish it in 2023.
Future Projects:
I am thinking of doing one more Dash Hammond book set
during the pandemic but haven’t completed the whole plot process in my mind.
I also have a few ideas for a stand-alone and I’d like
to write a short story or two.
I’m about to become the President of our Sisters in Crime chapter. I’d like to come up with some projects to help the unpublished members become published.
Thank you for having me.
Excerpt:
Sister Miriam Patrice slid back from the kneeler. The quiet of the church soothed her as it wrapped its velvet cloak of serenity around her. She sat, hands folded, once in prayer but now to stop the trembling. Glancing at the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows casting a rainbow on the empty pews, she drew in deep slow breaths. She looked at the watch pinned to her tunic. Time to get back to work. She rose to leave the church, her place of refuge, a place free from the distractions of the running the community and the new retirement home the sisters established to help make ends meet.
The members of the Sisters of the Blessed Mother of God found their numbers dwindling. New recruits, as Sister Miriam Patrice called them mimicking her cousin Dash Hammond’s military jargon, were very rare. The teaching congregation once had more than a hundred sisters. Vocations, callings to either the religious or the educational side of the community, had fallen to less than a handful each year.
As she walked down the aisle to the back of the church, she heard it again. Tap, tap, tap. She stopped to listen, making sure she wasn’t mistaken. That sound sent shivers down her spine. Squaring her shoulders she walked to the doors next to the church exit. One led up to the choir loft, the other down to the cellar. In days past she had gone up the stairs; today she would go down.
Pulling the doorknob, Miriam Patrice met the resistance of a locked door. She pulled out her keys and unlocked it. She struggled with the door, suggesting to her that no one had gone to the cellar in a while.
The stone steps were worn but sturdy. She moved cautiously into the darkness, one hand on the wall to steady her nervous knees, the other searching for the handrail. Her hope was that the security guard forgot to close the door one day and some critter, not two legged, was trapped down here and making the tap, tap, tap sound. Logically she knew this was wrong, but the alternative could be worse.
Decades ago they discovered one of the newer buildings constructed during a period of rapid expansion had been built on an underground spring. It wasn’t long before the building tilted, as did their finances. What a waste of time and money. Fearful that what she would find was a tell-tale pooling or bubbling of water, she moved forward slowly. She said a silent prayer that she would not stumble into a puddle, a precursor of the inevitable unwelcome news.
Her trek seemed unnecessarily slow though reason told Miriam Patrice she should alert one of her sisters where she was just in case she lost her footing. But her reasoning had not been the sharpest of late. She blamed her sleepless nights, not because of an uneasy conscience but an overabundance of concern for her congregation and its uncertain future, both financially and individually.
After spending a half an hour poking into the corners, searching for the origin of the sound, Miriam Patrice gave up. She needed a flashlight if she wanted to do a proper search. Next time she would be prepared. Next time, she told herself, she would be less skittish, more confident that she could deal with whatever sprung up from the tap, tap, tap. After deciding this, she nodded to herself. At least she didn’t hear a drip, drip, drip.
The sound had stopped so she returned to the church. As she locked the door behind her, the tap, tap, tap began again, louder this time. If she permitted herself, she would have said damn.
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