I was so single that when my mother invited me to go for a day hike and picnic in Boulder, Colorado for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I said yes.
Now, understand, I was not any kind of outdoorsy kinda guy. It's kinda the reason I eventually left Colorado. So? I did what any guy would do before the invention of ereaders and wifi. I took a radio, a stack of magazines, wore a swimsuit, and found a cheap paperback at the library.
I was looking for something spooky. I'd already conquered all the Clive Barkers I could ahve found by that point, Stephen King was already exasperated. But the librarian selling books saw me eyeing the book "The Stranger Beside Me."
"You've not read that yet?"
"No, is it good?"
"You mean, you've never read of Ann Rule?"
From breakfast to sunset and driving down from the mountains, I turned pages of this bestseller. It was exactly what I was looking for. The tale of a nice young lady who was planning to become a cop and who was volunteering at the local suicide hotline in the meanwhile. She sat next to a really hot guy, too, by the name of Ted Bundy.
Yes. That Ted Bundy.
The serial killer.
She would eventually go beyond being a cop to a police reporter for Seattle-Tacoma, and recall the tale of having a friendship with one of the most creepy killers in American history. Not only that, she wrote the book with such honor towards her friend and with a sense of suspense-she doesn't link the killer with the murders until much later in the book, when she, herself figured it out.
It's a real life horror story.
If you're interested....
I started hitting that library more and more. Her strength, however, I realized was in the smaller, singular homicides that populated her older texts, but her words were sharp. She realized she was not writing a mystery, so her observational eye was that as a cop.
And we, in turn, also became one.
I'd come across true crime before, in high school, when I read In Cold Blood. Again, excellent writing, and probably the book that started the genre. I admit, my interest was slightly purient. I had heard there were gay subtexts between the author and one of the killers and since I was massive closeted at the time; it allowed me to read that gay book without anyone questioning it.
But I was hooked. The presentation, the topics. This was no newspaper story; this was a You Are There.
I still seek out the True Crime section of bookstores.
And I still read her books, several worn paperbacks adorn my office shelves. Good stuff. It's like she was my drug dealer!
I bring this up because my beloved author has passed. No more stories. No more making me want to become a cop or Fed.
I noticed I've been gorging today, seeking candy.
Yes, I guess it is effecting me. I noticed it with Joanie Rivers passed; and Robin Williams. I try not to acknowledge it. But they don't know me, they've never met me.
But their work, their art, touched me on an emotional level. Ann carried me through a real life monster story and carried me out on the other side.
And with her passing, I have to acknowledge that. We lost a great author today, and, now that I'm seeing myself more and more as a writer, I have to admire that. I can only hope that one day, I can touch someone with a tale, a story, or a dream.
Peace be with you, Ms. Rule...you did right by this world.
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