{"id":311,"date":"2025-01-17T15:34:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T15:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2025-11-07T02:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T02:30:08","slug":"fun-killers-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/fun-killers-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Killers – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Genre: Mystery\/Suspense <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plot: A detective investigates fortune tellers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words to use: mind, predictions, future, power, crime, destiny, sage, voodoo, magic, spirit, whisper, secret, tarot, divination, foresight<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Rachel Knepp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detectives Colin McCabe and Jim Payne, complete polar opposites in their opinions, watched the fluorescent sign flash Welcome to The Psychic Festival<\/em>. A yearly event, the dates were for a whole four days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe power<\/strong> of the mind<\/strong>, Jim, is unbelievable,\u201d Colin said to his partner. Jim looked at him with a smirk on his face and gritted teeth, a storm cloud gathered over him. He had been dealing with all the superstitious nonsense from him the entire day and felt burnt out. They drew up outside the convention center, double parking to get as close as he could to the entrance. He didn\u2019t like walking miles to get to a crime scene. Jim slammed the car door shut and headed straight toward the doors, nudging his way through the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all nonsense, Colin, don\u2019t be ridiculous. They are just scammers, trying to use their voodoo<\/strong>, or whatever it is, to take people\u2019s money,\u201d Jim said, hopping out of the passenger seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call came to the station, and they both ran out of the station. Not another one!<\/em> Predictions<\/strong> had been made whether there would be another murder or not, but Jim hoped not. In his opinion, crime<\/strong> wasn\u2019t something you should bet on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All sorts of people arrived for the first Mystical Conference. The very first day, a woman had been found bludgeoned in her space, surrounded by tarot cards. Then the manager of the local movie theater, a visitor, had been found in a chair at the makeshift dining area, strangled, a tarot card in his pocket. And now another fortune teller, found in one of the offices, a set of tarot cards on her stomach and some sage<\/strong> in her hair. The only suspects at this time was a list of fortune tellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is just evil,\u201d Colin said, his face of stone determination, \u201cwhatever you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I know there is no such thing as magic<\/strong>. Whoever is doing this is one hundred percent real person, and not a spirit<\/strong>,\u201d Jim said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat we can agree on,\u201d Colin replied. He didn\u2019t think this had any connection to the beyond, but he liked to keep his mind open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They pushed through the milling crowd of onlookers, questions posed on their faces. They hear a question from a reporter, \u201cany statement about what happened, Detective?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo statement yet,\u201d the detective told him decisively, brushing past. Such a bother<\/em>, he thought with a smirk on his face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located in the interior offices of the conference center. The offices weren\u2019t used much so they didn\u2019t bother putting anything personal in any of them. A desk and a couple chairs, bare walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou would think if they could actually tell the future,<\/strong> the victims would have protected themselves better.\u201d Colin said to his partner who returned a smirk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight? Maybe they thought it would be their destiny<\/strong>,\u201d he quipped back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, you two, that\u2019s enough with the callous sarcasm. Time and place, and this ain\u2019t it.\u201d The deep voice made them both turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry, chief,\u201d Colin said, \u201cNo disrespect intended.\u201d He turned back around to look around the body. It filled the office chair, leaning back, mouth wide open, looking surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuess she didn\u2019t predict this,\u201d Colin said and gave a quick embarrassed backward glance at the Chief detective behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chief had been occupied with a quiet whisper<\/strong> from another detective to hear him, and he let out a sigh of relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre there any cameras in this area?\u201d McCabe asked the officer standing nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone, sir, and the ones they had were tampered with by someone,\u201d she said, her face turning green. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you okay, Officer Kline?\u201d Colin asked the youthful face pulled tight by the severe bun on the top of her head. She held youthful enthusiasm for most of the newbies on the police force, but she had some trouble with some aspects of the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I am okay. My first dead body,\u201d she replied, coughing and clearing her throat, looking away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will get used to it – unfortunately,\u201d he replied, his voice diminishing with the reality of police work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCabe had been looking through the pockets of the victim. He pulled out a tarot card from the inside of her brightly beaded vest and sighed deeply. \u201cSomeone is adding to their body count. Guess we are dealing with the same person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we know the person had the foresight to leave no clues behind,\u201d Colin said, he scratched his chin, something he did when he got frustrated with getting no answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get the body back to the morgue and have them do their magic. Maybe there is some secret<\/strong> hidden within,\u201d Colin made a whirling sound and moved his fingers, like he was conjuring up something out of thin air. Hopefully, a clue that lead them to the culprit. That would be a nice bit of divination<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The criminal investigation team had searched through the office carefully, finding nothing of significance besides many fingerprints. As the body was beginning to be lifted from the chair carefully, a small sound of metal piqued the interest of the detectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was that?\u201d Colin said. Jim looked at the carpet beneath the chair furtively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooks like a tiny bell. There is an attachment like it came from a bracelet or necklace.\u201d Jim replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They looked at each other. \u201cI guess we do have a clue. Someone made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay tuned for Part 2 – Sign up to receive alerts to my next post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 Rachel D. Knepp.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author\u2019s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means\u2014including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods\u2014without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or critical articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genre: Mystery\/Suspense  Plot: A detective investigates fortune tellers Words to use: mind, predictions, future, power, crime, destiny, sage, voodoo, magic, spirit, whisper, secret, tarot, divination, foresight Written by Rachel Knepp Detectives Colin McCabe and Jim Payne, complete polar opposites in their opinions, watched the fluorescent sign flash Welcome to The Psychic Festival. A yearly event, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[17,7,10,4,12],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-detective-fiction","tag-detectivefiction","tag-fiction","tag-shortstory","tag-storywriter","tag-writingprompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}