electric mist

and there were fingerprints...

Tamar posted this when talking about researching for her next project:

Somewhere along the line I'll need to find a cop or two to interview, learn the inside of a police station and a jail and maybe even a morgue. On the other hand, those are standard-issue thriller and mystery fodder and I live in a made-for-the-screen town. I'm sure I can find a way in. The LAPD probably has a whole division set aside for this purpose. But I'm nervous anyway. I've never done this, never gone to the source and asked the questions. Not for fiction. I've read books and visited locales but never interviewed people for this.

This reminded me of my very first (and only, and you'll see why) experience doing research here locally when I was writing my very first thriller. I didn't know anything about police procedure, particularly how the local cops would isolate a murder site and what sorts of things would happen next (and this was long before there was any sort of CSI). I had written quite a lot of articles for the local paper and magazine and had eventually become an assistant editor at the latter, so when confronted with not knowing something, it seemed pretty natural just to go to the source.

I am, and have always been, a sort of weird dichotomy. I can be outgoing when meeting people and interviewing and dealing with the public, and I've learned (especially when interviewing) how to guage the other person, to charm them just enough so that they are comfortable and not wary; I can handle being in large crowds, but it's much easier being in front of them, whether it's speaking / performing or whatever, because then it's simply a role. Which leads to the dichotomy, in that I am essentially a hermit, and am happy being a hermit, and wouldn't step foot out of my house unless the family made me on occasion.

So going to the local police department was scary for me, even though I knew I would sort of hit the internal switch and turn "on" and play the role of a person who could handle that sort of thing.

When I got there, I was introduced to a very nice Sergeant who was going to answer my questions. He was the "media liaison" I was told. He asked me if I had ever seen a police station (I hadn't) and he gave me a tour, taking me to where they book the people brought in, showed me the fingerprinting thingie, asked me if I wanted to have my fingerprints done. I figured why not, it would better help to be able to describe the whole thing. (I was 23. Okay? Naive.) At some point, he had asked for my driver's license (I cannot for the life of me remember the reason he asked for it, but it seemed so plausible, I handed it over). So we finally get to his office where he asks me to describe the murder scene in as great a detail as I could. I had brought with me other things I had written so he could see my byline and know I wasn't wasting his time, but he didn't bother looking at them. He just wanted the murder scene.

Which I sketched out. Luckily for me, I have a really vivid imagination and my intent was to set a scene using certain aspects of Louisiana that I hadn't seen anywhere else. He kept asking questions until one of his officers came in with my license (I hadn't realized he'd handed it off to someone) and said something along the lines of, "Clean as a whistle." Whereupon the Sergeant grinned and I suddenly realized what had been going on the whole time. I felt like the biggest, most naive imbecile on the planet. (okay, I was, but still.)

I asked, "Were you seriously thinking I'd committed a murder and had gone to all the lengths of proving I was a writer just to come in here and brag about it?" And he answered, "You'd be surprised just how many times something similar to that has happened." He went on to explain that they had often had the perpetrator walk in there with some piece of information or some little observation that they know won't really help, but it's legit enough to get them in there and the main reason they want to do that is because they know they outsmarted the police and it's bugging the crap out of them that they can't crow about it, so they do the next best thing -- watch as closely as they can. I was still reeling over having been a suspect (however briefly) and he said, "Don't worry, no one here trusts anyone completely, not even their partners." I looked out across the bullpen of detectives as he spoke and it suddenly hit me was a terribly lonely life they must lead. I also knew after I left there that if anything remotely similar to what I was describing happened in real life, I was going to get a nice little visit.

The whole process freaked me out a little. Actually, a lot, at the time, and I think that was the first time I came away from an interview with a lot less than I needed (and I always had more than I needed). There have been several times since then that I really really really needed to ask questions of the law enforcement to get a scene just right, but the process feels like I'm dealing with tricksters instead of just a source, so I try to find written sources instead. (Google? I would sacrifice chocolate before I'd let anyone take my internet.)

You'd think after so many years (I am so not 23 anymore) and successes, that this wouldn't bother me, but it does. Probably most of all because I felt silly, and I was hoping to be taken serioiusly. Feeling silly really doesn't do a whole lot for the ego, particularly for a writer's ego when you're so rarely taken seriously anyway. The problem is that after I finish the writing project I'm doing right now, the next one is really going to require me to ask a lot of police procedural questions. I also have some CSI / coroner types of things I need to know. (I had a breakthrough on a major story point on how to accomplish something that seemed to be un-doable, but to get the exact detail right? Gonna have to ask someone in the field.) grrr.

Posted by toni at September 20, 2004 03:00 PM