The Newell Murder excerpt

The Newell Murder is one of the books written by Oseyiza Oogbodo, curator of this blog. Below is an excerpt of it. The full book, and other Oogbodo books, are available as eBooks at: https://www.amazon.com/author/oseyizaoogbodo

ONE

The newsroom of the Los Angeles Horizon was neatly arrayed with leather-top desks and armchairs. The desks had electric typewriters, paperweights, pen holders and ceramic ashtrays on them. A shredding machine and a coffee percolator were in a corner, and a spectacular painting of a nude woman hung on the far wall from the door.

Eight of the Horizon’s boys were flocked around the nude arguing on whether she had long or short legs when Dave Lauren, ace crime reporter, stepped in.

Lauren was lantern-jawed and five feet eleven tall. He had thick black wavy hair on his head, twinkling black eyes, a thin straight nose with slightly wide nostrils and high cheekbones.

He was twenty-nine with a flat stomach, wide shoulders and muscular chest from his consistency in the gym.

He paused just inside the doorway at the sight of the boys on the case of the nude again. Hoping none of them had noticed him, he tried to back out the door to come back later because he didn’t want to get involved in the dissertation, but he was too late as Mark Bane, society correspondent, had already spotted him.

Bane waved a reproaching hand. “Hi there, Dave old fella. How about coming over to tell us some things about this voluptuous nude.”

Lauren was caught and he stopped with a guilty little jerk. He strode over and stood beside the now silent boys who awaited what he would have to impart.

But first: “Hi, Mark, Sid, Joe, Ed, Al, Chris, Jay, Jon,” he greeted them by name all around as just a little delay.

They acknowledged him back with “Hi, Dave” and “Hello, Dave.”

“Dave, buddy,” Bane continued, “which does she have, short or long legs? You’re gonna be the tie-breaker here, mind. We’re tied on four views each either way. Personally, I think …” and he would have given Lauren his view to influence him but someone silenced him with a glare and a “shut your trap right there, Mark. Let the boy speak for himself.”

Lauren faced the painting squarely and pretended to study it, but he knew already the length of the nude’s legs: short. Though she was painted seated, but in a fully revealing way, it was easy enough to see that. And he had done so on an earlier occasion when they had analysed her hair colour which was an indistinct shade of brown.

“To me, her legs are short,” he said firmly and turned around to make his escape good before the debate would turn heated as it had the potential to do like it did back when they treated her hair colour and they hadn’t even yet gotten around to the breasts.