October’s Three by Five author is John Byrne Barry.
John Byrne Barry wrote his first book length project in fifth grade at Kilmer School in Chicago — a 140-page book on dinosaurs. One dinosaur per page. Lots of white space. He’s been writing ever since — newspaper and magazine stories, plays and skits, reports and tweets. He’s even written “advice columns” — “Question the Authority” about environmental issues, and “Lazy Organic Gardener.”
In, 2013, he published his first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher. Set in New Mexico during the 2008 presidential campaign, it’s one part political thriller, one part family soap, and one part murder mystery. Coming out later this fall is Wasted, a “green noir” mystery set in the world of garbage and recycling in Berkeley.
He lives in Mill Valley, California with his wife and family. For more about John, return on days that have a 3 in them! in the mean time – here’s the first page of his current work in progress:
Edgewater
by John Byrne Barry
Chapter 1: Dry Run
CHICAGO. JANUARY 2014.
Lamar huddled in the janitor’s closet between the fifth and sixth floor for two hours and thirty minutes. The wind howled outside, whipping across Lake Michigan and rattling the small window above the empty gray metal shelving unit on the back wall. The closet reminded him of a jail cell, though he’d only been in one once, to visit a client.
The small room had a pleasant smell of lemon verbena, from some cleaning products, but underneath that was a dank odor of a wet rug rolled up and jammed against a wall.
In the corner was a rolling cart stacked with folding chairs, and when he got tired of standing, he unfolded a chair and sat. A month earlier, when he did his reconnaissance, the closet had been bulging with Christmas decorations. Ornaments for the trees, stockings, wreaths, tree stands, strings of lights. Now they were on display at the nurses’ station, in the bingo room, by the elevators, and in the first floor lobby.
He had picked the lock of the closet. Easy even for an amateur like him. No one would guess that was something he could do.
At 1:30 am, he walked up seventeen steps. Didn’t make a sound. Nudged open the door with his shoulder. Two hours and thirty minutes earlier, he had slipped a folded postcard between the strike plate and the latch bolt. The photo on the card was of the lakefront and the Chicago skyline gleaming in the summer sun.
As he slipped inside the room, he stepped on something that crunched, like a potato chip. He froze. It didn’t appear to disturb anyone. He shuffled past the roommate, then stood in the shadows behind the curtain separating the two beds. Standing ramrod still, he felt the weight of his shoulder bag, heavy with the nitrogen tank. He could see the light of the corridor through the curtain, but knew that no one passing could see him. Not that there were likely to be any passersby in the middle of this cold night.
Robert Rose lay on his back, his hands open and crossing his chest. Peaceful. Lamar aspired to be peaceful, and may have appeared so on the outside. That was not what he was experiencing on the inside.
Vicki Hudson 