Posted in Posted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

   The stable smelled of fresh straw on the inside, and one could hear quiet crunching as the horses ate their hay.
   “There, that's Joseph.” Ashley pointed to a picture on the wall of a horse. It had a unique coat, that was for sure. White with black spots, outlined with brown and with grey speckles. “She named him Joseph after the Joseph in the Bible.”
   Kit blinked and looked at Ashley. “What?”
   “You know, the Joseph with the multi-colored coat that got sold by his brothers?”
   Kit shook her head. “No idea what you're talking about,” she turned back to study the picture.
   Ashley seemed a little taken aback, but she said nothing more about it. “Did you want to see the paths?”
   “Yeah,” Kit stepped away from the picture. “I don't generally care for horses, but that is one nice looking horse. Are there many with that coloring?”
   “Nope, that's the first one I've seen with those markings, and I've been around horses for a while.”
   Kit glanced at the picture again and then followed Ashley out. Ashley led her to a well worn path that led off towards a patch of wooded land and then pointed. “There's the main path. Follow it down and just keep on it 'till you see another path jutting off that is marked with a red ribbon. That is the path she took.”
   “Okay, thanks,” Kit thanked Ashley before setting off down the path. She hadn't gone far when she heard, “Hey, wait up!” She turned around to see Jeremy running towards her.
  “What do you think you're doing?” he demanded.
   “Dan said that I should check out the path.”
   “By yourself? You don't know if kidnappers might still be lurking in there. I'm coming with you.”
   “Don't think I can take care of myself huh?” Kit giggled. “Fine, I don't care if you come or go but let's get moving whatever we do.”

-Sir Doyle

Posted in Posted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There is more of this story on my writing blog, Writer's Place

    Kit pushed aside the memories for a moment to turn onto a small gravel road that wound its way up the side of a hill. Her mother would never had approved of her bouncing along over a dusty road. Her mother wouldn't, and didn't, approve of anything that she had done. She wanted her to settle down and have kids, not run off to some college in America and become a police detective. She shook her head, as if to scatter the memories like autumn leaves before the wind. Her car came to a stop in front of the stables. There were a few policemen still there, and a few other people. Pushing her half grown bangs away from her face, she stepped out of the car and started towards the knot of people.
   “Heya Kit,” a tall brown-haired man waved as she neared them.
    “Hey Jeremy,” Kit smiled and glanced around at the buildings. “Is the owner here?”
   A short, brown haired woman stepped forward. “That'd be me,” she offered a hand. “I'm Ashley Carroway.”
   Kit shook her hand. “Kit Schwester. Daniel sent me to have a look around, mostly at the riding trails.”
   Ashley nodded. “Right. Well the trails are down that way, they branch off in quite a few different ways. Beth wrote in the log book that she was taking the red trail. It's marked by a red ribbon.”
   “And the horse? It didn't come back?”
   “No. I noticed that he wasn't in his stall and that is Beth's horse so I figured that she had gone out with him. The problem was that she was usually back by then. So I went to check the log, I thought maybe she had headed out late and I saw that she had left, as usual, at six thirty.”
   “What does the horse look like?”
   Ashley motioned for her to follow. “There's a picture of him in the stables.”
   As they walked to the main building, Kit looked curiously around at everything. She had never really like horses all that much and so had never been to a stables. Now that she was at one she wanted to get as much information as she could from the experience.

- Sir Doyle

Posted in Posted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    Dan picked up some papers and started fishing through them. “Here's the what information we could find, it really isn't much.”
   Kit got up and walked over to look over his shoulder. “Bethany Jackson, age eighteen, works at High Ridge Stables, estimated kidnapping time six thirty... was on a horse ride? Who would go on a ride that early?”
   Dan chuckled. “People that are crazy about horses don't mind the time I guess. Ashley, the owner of the stables, said that she goes on rides at that time every day. Something about being alone with God or something,” he shrugged.
   “So you've been to the scene?” Kit questioned.
   “Well, we've been to the stables but we haven't done any looking around on the paths. I thought you'd like to be there.”
   “Well you thought right! Are we going now?”
   “We? I need to stay here and hold down the fort. You can go, there are some of our other people there still.”
   “Great!” Kit grabbed her coat and ran out of the door, excited to be on something already. She had been at this police station for only a couple of weeks, though this wasn't the first time she had worked as a police. It had taken a while for her to get to where she was now, it had been something she had dreamed of pretty much all of her life. She had always been bolder than her sister and not nearly as boy-crazy. Kit rolled her eyes as she remembered overhearing her parents talking about her.

   “What is wrong with that girl?” her mother asked, exasperated.
   “I don't know. Maybe she'll grow out of it,” her father had been at least a little more laid back about the affair.
   “But what if she doesn't?” her mother worried again. “What if she never goes out and finds someone? What will happen to her when we're gone? I think you should talk to her.”
   “Why don't we give her a little more time? She may not need our urging.”
   “Fine and I hope you're right. I guess it wouldn't do any good to talk to her anyway, she's as stubborn as a mule.”
   Her father had chuckled. “That she is.”

   Kit frowned. Her father had ended up talking to her once, her mother more than once, and her sister constantly would point out boys wherever they went. She wondered at how she had survived it all. Of course her brother liked her more because she didn't follow the usual silly ways of the girls in their neighborhood, and she got along well with him. Her sister and she were so different though that they never had a very close relationship.

~ Arthur Doyle

Posted in Posted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Authur Conan here, here's a tad of my story:

“So, what's going on today?” a woman with a slight German accent walked into the police station of the small town, Vistaff. Long, wavy, chestnut brown hair fell down her back as she flopped down into a chair and started shuffling through papers.
“Ah, Kit. You're here,” a tall man with dark hair rose from the table that he had been sitting at. “We got a call this morning, it looks like there's been a kidnapping.” Kit looked up. “Really? I thought that you said it was boring in this town Dan! You call that boring?”
Dan smiled a little, “Well, I should have said that it is usually boring. This hasn't happened for years. In fact, it hasn't happened at all while I've been here.”