Novel Progress: crime scene

The second assignment in Coursera's Creative Writing: Craft of Character was to describe a character who isn't in the scene. We weren't allowed to mention the character. Instead, the scene was meant to imply the traits and behaviors of a character who had been there. For this assignment, I sent my main character Zach to a crime scene, where he observes the aftermath of a small child in a jewelry store.

“I’ll need a list of the stolen items,” Zach told the manager of the jewelry store. “With photos, if you have them.”

Talia nodded. “I’m already putting that together for my insurance company.”

“Were they all taken from the same display case?”

“Yes, over here.” Talia walked to the right side of the store, where the row of glass cases stopped a few feet short of the back wall. “This last one. I don't understand how the thief got into it. It’s still locked, not broken, and no alarms went off last night.”

Zach crouched next to the case to confirm what she’d told him. In the gap between the end of the case and the wall was a pet bed, with bowls of water and food, and a scattering of toys. He looked up at the manager. “I didn’t notice a pet.”

“Those belong to Cyglana.” She gestured to a poster on the wall, featuring a black cat with diamonds draped around her neck like a collar. “I use her in our advertising. She’s popular with the kids and fairly tolerant. If they get too rambunctious, she climbs to her perch on the other side of the store.”

Sure enough, a serene cat sat in a sphinx-like pose on a shelf about seven feet high. “Did my team disturb her?”

Talia laughed. “No, she has no complaints about you. She’s been up there all morning.”

“How did you notice the theft?”

Talia lowered to her knees, and gestured to a kiddie cup on the floor under the case. The lid should have kept the liquid in, but it had loosened, and now both the cup and lid lay in a dark, wet spot on the navy blue carpet. A towel lay beside them. “I ran over to deal with the spill, and when I looked up at the case, that’s when I realized several pieces were missing.”

In addition to the cup, there was a scattering of frosted cereal under the case. “These aren’t Cyglana’s?”

“No. I don’t give her sugary foods.”

Looking at the case from a child’s height, Zach noticed a smattering of dried droplets on the glass, as if someone had sneezed and not covered their nose. He pulled on a pair of gloves before he touched the case.

In front of the case, a stuffed animal had a bright pink stain on its belly, the same color as the juice that was dried on the side of the kiddie cup. The stain was in the shape of a child’s hand. Talia reached for the toy, but stopped an inch short. “I don’t want to disturb the crime scene if your team isn’t done.”

“Thanks. Let’s leave it for now.” Zach switched on a flashlight to look at the underside of the case. “That a customer’s toy, or one of yours?”

“It’s one I supplied for kids to play with. A jewelry store can be boring for them, and if they fuss their parents leave rather than staying to buy something. Thus the play space.”

“What about this?” Zach dislodged a slender doll that had been wedged between the case and the wall. Its hair had been yanked out, and a dress that had probably been white once upon a time was now beige with a blue stain similar to the one on the teddy bear.

“No, I don’t recognize her.”

For the sake of simplicity and meeting the word limits of the assignment, I made Cyglana a cat. However, in the novel she'll be a small variety of swan. I'm fortunate to have Silbrith the birder for a beta reader, and she's supplied many fantastic suggestions for Cyglana. 

In the novel this scene will be vastly different, because I changed it to YA. Zach is no longer an investigator, but a first-year college student. Instead his mom will be the one visiting the scene of the crime in her role as a cop.

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