Working Title: The Accidental Murderer

Here's a teaser for my much anticipated first novel. Before I sell it I have to figure out what genre it is: it's not very mysterious; it's not very thrilling; there are cops in it but it's not very procedural; it's fiction but not very scientific; it's not very romantic; it's not completely funny. But, hopefully, it's a little of all those things. "Human drama," maybe. "A chick-book for guys," could be. "Intense psychological character study," no, I don't think so.

Here's a teaser, no set up:

“He comes over and says, ‘well boys and girls . . . what’a we got here?’ he didn’t seem like a bad guy. So he comes over to me, and he says, you know, come in here for a minute, not some room like in the movies, just his office, his and a couple of other guys, they weren’t there. I did like Claude told me, my name’s Darlene, they had my f*ckin’ ID by then, yeah, yeah, yeah, Steve is a friend of a friend, he was just giving me a ride to . . . I forget what I told him. So, you know, it’s like, ‘where you going somewhere to buy something?’ Steve didn’t say we were, I told him, on and on for a while, and he figured what the hell, she don’t know nothin,’ and he’s right! So he got friendly, and showed me a picture, this is my daughter, he says, the kid’s about my age. He tells me I should be more careful with the company I keep, I just said, yeah, I guess so, thanks a lot, you know. Then he had me sit far away from Claude, next to some other desk, and tells me wait here.
“Then he took Claude, uncuffed him from the bench and put his hands behind his back, they went in the office, he was in about ten minutes, I couldn’t hear nothin.’ They came out and he put him back on the bench, then he comes and tells me, ‘we’re gonna torch the trunk, we’re getting’ a warrant, it won’t take long.’ One of the uniform cops laughed a little. We are so f*ckin’ dead, I thought, oh sh*t I was scared.”
“And they just left you sitting there, just like that?” Johnny thought they would’ve taken them to a holding cell, at least Claude, but then again, they really had nothing on them, and they weren’t going anywhere, especially Claude, cuffed to the bench.
“Yeah, ain’t that somethin’? So Claude just smiled at me and closed his eyes, Jesus, I thought he was really asleep, but he was thinkin,’ you know, what to do.”
“Well, here you are, with Claude’s car, so something must have happened.”
“Yeah, after about forty minutes, Claude called the detective over, and they talked a little bit, and sure enough, the cop walks over to where I’m sitting and tells me, I’m f*ckin’ amazed, you ain’t involved here, you can go, go say goodbye to your boyfriend. So I go over and sit next to Claude, like, what the f*ck did you tell him, he says I can go, and he says, ‘shut up and listen, I just put the key in your pocket . . . take the car,’ and he told me to come here."
“They just let you take the car?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of stupid when you think about it. I guess everybody’s tired in the middle of the night, you forget sh*t. I just went to the car and drove out, the cop at the gate f*ckin’ waved to me.”
Johnny had a good laugh at that one. People in general are kind of stupid, he thought, but when a pretty girl is involved, guys get real stupid. He told Darlene to go to sleep, on the couch, “this is the warmest part of the house, you’ll be fine, go up to the bathroom if you want,” and he put his jacket over her. “I’m going to bed,” he said, “Claude will be fine, he’s playing them like a f*ckin’ harp.” And he went up to bed.