“Who Knows Where It Goes” was inspired by the economic downturn. I wrote it without a destination in mind, rather a rarity in recent years, and sent it straight to Janet Hutchings at EQMM. The title is from the haunting song by my friend Junior Burke.
“Without a Body” is more a vignette than a story. It was commissioned a good ten years ago by Esquire; I was one of five or six writers asked to write something inspired by the Sante and Kenny Kimes murder case. (You could look it up.) A private investigator friend of mine was doing some investigative work for the defense, so I talked to her and spent a day at the trial and wrote an impressionistic piece from the victim’s point of view. Esquire meanwhile had second thoughts, paid everybody, and returned all the stories. I quite forgot about it until it turned up on my hard drive — whereupon I sent it to EQMM, where I’m pleased to say it found a home in 2010.