Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

Kendrick Can’t Cake Retirement
by Andrew Marshall

     “Private dick solves any crime from $100. What have I gotten myself into?” Kendrick said. He drove down the 10 freeway from their old bungalow near the Wilshire District to downtown Los Angeles with the puppy shredding an old Styrofoam coffee cup into little white pieces on the passenger floorboard.

     Palm tree tops filled all four horizons like little green nuclear explosions and the Santa Monica Mountains hung menacingly to his left, like a brown wave ready to drown everything and everybody in muck. He strangled the steering the wheel with his two hands, wondering how his son Jackson convinced him to place an ad on something called Craigslist anyway.

     “On my way to find a guy who steals birthday cakes. This is what retirement lowers you to.”

     The only feeling Kendrick Deeter could compare retirement to was being put on desk duty, permanently. Not that he didn’t foresee the overwhelming boredom and some lingering depression—he was a detective after all. Was a detective—nearly forty years working the streets of Los Angeles, cleaning up the streets, they used to say. Now the police solved murders of criminals, who mostly deserved it, by criminals who deserved it a little bit more. Nope, he didn't miss the people.

     Still, it was better than spending every second with your wife. Her current obsession was the two of them cooking dinner together. Over their thirty five years of marriage, Kendrick was sure he made it clear that his main interest in food was eating it, but now she thought they should cook their meals together while talking and sipping wine. Kendrick couldn’t shake the feeling that Rachel wanted their lives to resemble a Tums commercial: two old people oblivious to the inconveniences of getting older and doing things like climbing mountains, cooking dinners, and Juniper.

     Juniper was the puppy she had brought home last week, the one now pulling on his seatbelt with her razor sharp teeth. She had the nerve to call it a “retirement puppy.” Juniper was just another accessory to the delusional retirement Rachel had concocted in her head.

    When he first complained to his son, Jackson, about all this, he suggested Kendrick get another job.

     “I don’t need the money and security is all that’s left for us old timers. That’s the last thing I need, half the pay and a quarter of the respect. Besides, there’s no mystery in that.”

    Hearing the word come out of his own mouth surprised him, made him feel silly. He supposed mystery was what he missed most: being able to unearth the golden truth among the confusion suspects, witnesses, fellow policeman, and lawyers threw into the mix; Kendrick’s gift was taking a whole lot of details and figuring out which ones mattered.

     “So Dad, what you want is to bitch about Mom,” Jackson said, cutting to the chase. “I have another suggestion instead. Think it over for a second before you say no. Let me put an ad on Craigslist.com for you: Private Detective will solve any crime for a $100.”

     “Who is this Craig character?”

     But now Kendrick was on the job again, kind of. His only problem was figuring out how to pass the 4lb wound-up toy, Juniper, as a K-9 dog. For $100, he figured his client would just have to deal with it. He exited downtown and swung through the gristly streets, happy to see the Mexican’s selling fruit, homes posing as cars, bums waiting for liquor stores to open with last night’s begging money, and the occasional guy standing on a corner pretending he was waiting for a ride. Nothing like dirty streets, the smell of diesel and suspicious people to make an old detective remember himself, he thought.

    After he agreed, it only took three days for Jackson to call back, “You won’t believe it, Dad. You’ve got your first case.”

    “Oh boy,” Kendrick said sarcastically, but the truth was he was sitting in the kitchen writing down everything his wife called out, apparently they were going to “share” another grocery “run” later.

    “What’s the case?” Kendrick asked, and his wife stopped her rummaging in the pantry and tilted her head.

    “Missing birthday cakes,” Jackson said, “Just go to Farmer’s Plumbing Supply on 5th street anytime during business hours and Joe, the owner, will fill you in. He asked if you’ll take cash.”

    “I said a can of black beans,” Rachel bellowed. Kendrick resisted the temptation of pointing out how the first rendition of the order didn’t include the word “can.” The mystery of the words missing off the grocery list was now solved

    And just so you know, she continued, “You will—not—be taking—any—cases”

    That was all she needed to say for Kendrick to make up his mind. She was standing at the front door holding Juniper when he came back downstairs after getting dressed. The look on her face suggested she was going to beat him to death with the little backbone he had left.

    “Forty years you walk out this door and forty years I worry. I thought you were giving up your life of danger.”

    “We’ve only lived in this house for eight years. And we’ve been married thirty five. And besides, who said anything about danger?” Kendrick asked.

    “Why else would you be carrying two guns?”

    He wasn’t surprised she could recognize the slight lift of cloth at his chest, she was a detective’s wife after all, but he never guessed she would know he was carrying a another on the ankle.

    “When you wear the ankle gun thingy, you swing that leg differently,” she said, reading his mind. Small surprises like this is what keeps me married to her, he thought.

    “Rachel, a man like me can’t go cold turkey. I need danger. Mystery. This retirement is killing me.”

    She thrust the puppy into his arms. “Well, you’re taking Juniper.”

    Farmers Plumbing was a cinder block building with an old rusted sign. It was surrounded by a chain-linked fence with green vinyl netting that hid most of the dirty parking lot and the crummy cars on top of it. The establishment was located in the shrinking manufacturing area just north of downtown Los Angeles and from the outside it had the feeling of bankruptcy written all over it. He entered the stifling waiting room and a middle-aged woman at a desk lazily lifted her head, seeming to have forgotten people could actually walk in the front door. Once Kendrick was close enough, he noticed a wedding ring on her right hand and the faint smell of gin.

    “Can I—urp—help you?”

    “Here to see Joe.”

    She picked up a phone and leaned back. Kendrick noticed the woman’s pants were so tight the seams were pushed forward to nearly bursting.

    “Joe. Some guy here to see you. No, I didn’t—urp—ask. Sorry,” and she hung up. She opened a desk drawer full of Hershey Kisses and lifted one up to him with a wink.

    “No thanks.”

    “Suit yourself. You know, if you take one and do this,” she lifted her fist up and smashed the innocent Hershey Kiss, “they’re Hershey smashes, not kisses.” Then she giggled and hiccupped.

    Juniper poked his head out of Kendrick’s jacket and the woman’s eye’s lit up.

    “Puppy. Gimme.” She said, holding out her arms. Kendrick happily gave Juniper over. A tall, thin man with a nice thick comb-over came around the corner.

    “I’m Joe. Who are you?”

    “Name’s Kendrick. You contacted me.”

    “Oh yeah. Come on back,” and the man started to head to the rear of the office.

    Kendrick leaned over the woman’s desk and whispered, “Chocolate will kill dogs,” just as she was reaching for the Hershey’s Smashed.

    “Oh yeah?” she said, and shoved the kiss in her own mouth instead and started to rub Juniper’s belly.

    Joe led Kendrick into a cheaply decorated office. Various stains littered the old carpet that looked to have once been a bright gold, but now appeared reminiscent of grimy mustard. Kendrick wouldn’t be surprised if some of it was mustard. The chairs in front of the desk looked nearly greasy. The wood paneled walls were empty, save a calendar from 1993, and a very dark oil painting that appeared to be a depressing sunset.   On this desk was a purple ceramic ashtray crammed with butts.

    “My wife hates my office, never misses an opportunity to say so. Our daughter did that painting, and this thing,” he said, indicating the ashtray, “is from my son. Years back. See, at heart, we’re a family business. With any luck, Danny will take over someday. So, detecting for a $100 a crack, huh?”

    “Yep.”

    “Our daughter saw your ad on the internet and called me. She’s on my side.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    “Let me guess, retired. Don’t need the money.”

    “Something like that.”

    Kendrick was glad to see they’d get along fine.

    “Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose. The wife wanted to hire this guy who wouldn’t even walk in the front door for less than a thousand dollars.”

    “You don’t say.”

    “I figured you were more our speed. This is small potatoes.”

    “What is it?” Kendrick asked, figuring the insults weren’t intentional.

    “Half of me hopes you don’t find out a thing. See, I wouldn’t have called if my wife Marina wasn’t making such a fuss. It’s no big deal, if you ask me.”

    Joe leaned forward confidentially. He pulled out a $100 bill and slid it across the table. Kendrick had never been paid in cash and it felt dirty; He couldn’t’ say if he liked it or not.

    “Well, if you find out who did it I’d have to fire someone, don’t I? And then I have to replace them. It’s worth losing a few birthday cakes, if you know what I mean. But my wife is in such a stink about it,” he said winking, “so, really, no pressure.”

    “What happened?”

    “For all the years I’ve been in business, I’ve asked my wife to bake birthday cakes for our employees. To me, it’s a nice part of working for a small company, a homemade birthday cake. Makes up for the things we don’t have that big company’s do. We got two birthdays this month—Ted and Tess. Problem is, the cakes keep disappearing. My wife wants me to hire you to find out who is eating them cakes.”

    “I see.” Kendrick was trying to sort through the humiliation to see if he should feel it. He was a multi-decorated detective for the city of Los Angeles. The mayor himself dropped by his retirement party; a relationship created when Kendrick single-handedly and quickly found a child abducted by a recently released felon. The Police Department needed good news badly that year and the mayor jumped to celebrate the intuition and inventiveness of Kendrick. Now he’s being paid a $100 to find a birthday cake bandit.

    Still, he really hated going to the supermarket. And here he was, intrigued, feeling the itch to get to the bottom of it.

    “So, my client is your wife?”

    “Well, let’s say it’s us.”

    “How many people do you have working here?”

    “I suppose that’s the good news. We’ve got seventeen employees, but only seven had access to the cakes, which are kept in the break room refrigerator. The others can’t get in without being buzzed, and they never come back here anyway.”

    “So you say. Seems like a lot of security for a small company.”

    “I hire ex-cons in the back. Second chance and all that, besides they work for cheap. Marina hates it, made a big stink, and so I put in the security, but we don’t do cakes for them anymore—thanks to her. That really leaves four people because two of the seven are me and Marina, and Bill is outside sales—he only comes in Mondays and Fridays. The four are Tess at the front. Stacy in accounting. And Gus.   Good old Gus was here before I even owned the company. He’s our engineer. And Ted, he does the inside sales. Hard for me to see any of them doing this, but everyone here does love to eat. ”

    “Everyone get along?”

    “Mostly. You know, people who work together.”

    Kendrick did—“difficult” was written in nearly every evaluation he ever had. It’s why he stayed where he always wanted to be, a simple detective.

    “What’s your wife do here?”

    “Calls herself an office manager.”

    “That girl up front, she drinks. Marriage on the rocks?”

    “Yeah,” Joe looked at Kendrick suspiciously, “she tell you that?”

    “No.”

    “I see. She’s been with us twelve years and is going through a rough spot. I’ve been looking the other way.”

    “Your wife agrees?”

    “Well, my wife thinks Tess needs to get the sack. Been saying it for a good month. I say let it go. But my wife is all over me about it. We’ve had some drag outs. Small companies should be like families and you don’t throw family to the street when they’re in bad times.”

    “Can I use your office for the afternoon?”

    “Well…I guess.”

    “I need to interview everyone.”

    “That makes sense. But I can only give you a few hours. I have work to do.”

    “That’ll be fine. Send your wife in, then Tess. And I hope it’s okay that Tess watches my pup for a few hours while I sort this out.”

    “Sure. I’ll get Marina.”

    “Good. Where’s the toilet?”

    Kendrick followed the directions to the bathroom, hoping to eliminate some suspects on the way. He made the left then the right, just as he was told, and he saw the long hall way leading to a door with a black sign. Apparently, the sign said Restroom, but he’d need to get closer to be sure. Eyes weren’t what they used to be.

    He walked by two cubicles and figured nature could wait why he made a detour.

    In the first cubicle he found a middle-aged, heavyset man carefully spreading some ointment all over his pimply face. Kendrick took the opportunity to give his pants a needed hoist and pulled his jacket apart in the process, revealing his 38. The man froze.

    “Relax, I’m a cop.” Kendrick knew Private Investigators to be lying S.O.B.s and always envied their freedom. He also knew a gun made an impression.

    “What do you want?” the man said, carefully moving to close one of his desk drawers. Kendrick acknowledged the gesture and grinned. He’d get to that.

    Suddenly, a woman with a too-tight perm and braces on her teeth popped her head up from the other side of the cubicles.

    “That bitch called the cops?” she asked Kendrick, “figures.”

    Then the woman looked down at the man trying to smooth the rest of the ointment over his face and said, “It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again.”

    “Shut up Stacy.”

    “Ted shaved two weeks ago and is trying to stay beautiful,” she told Kendrick.

    “I had a full beard for years and ever since I shaved I’ve had problems with my skin. That’s all,” Ted replied.

    “What made you shave?” Kendrick asked.

    “Nothing really.”

    Kendrick reached down and opened the drawer. Inside were enough sweets to enable a class of kindergartners to take over a city—everything from Snickers to Junior Mints to Twinkies to Rollos.

    “Book ‘em, Danno!” Stacy said.

    “Just snacks. No big deal.”

    “He’s diabetic and he’s been off the wagon,” Stacy offered

    “I’m Type 2. No big deal.

    “You’re gonna kill yourself,” she said.

    “What do you know about the missing cakes?” Kendrick asked, and he heard Stacy snort. When he looked up, he saw it in her face, the absurdity of a cop questioning people about lost cakes. Stacy’s face turned red when he scowled at her: if he was going to this, he had to do it right—even if it was just cakes.
    “That bitch,” Stacy whispered and ducked back down into her cubicle.

    “Well?” Kendrick asked Ted, who now looked sullen and embarrassed.

    “Well what!” he exploded suddenly, “I shaved because I’m lonely and I eat because I’m lonely and I get zits cause I eat.”

    After his outburst, he stared down at his desk, then sighed, “I know Joe and his wife fight over cakes everyday. She’s so mean I bet you she destroyed her own cakes. You could tell she resented having to make a cake for us lowly servants.”

    “Were you disappointed when you didn’t get to have cake?” Kendrick asked, thinking it was going to take a lot of Bourbon to forget this day.

    “No. The whole birthday thing here is so forced and strained.”

    “Well then, the cakes going AWOL suited your desires just fine,” Kendrick said. Ted looked to the side and shook his head miserably; the indignity of his life seemed a terrible burden. Kendrick decided to take the five steps to Stacy’s cubicle. She was ready for him, with a post-it-note rolled up like a cigarette and a cool look on her face.

    “I don’t know nothin, see. So don’t try to pin the caper on me, got it.”

    “Cut the crap,” he replied, even though the crap was the most interesting part of the day so far. “What do you know about them cakes?”

    “I know what everyone knows, them cakes aren’t homemade.”

    In the restroom, while washing his hands, Kendrick wished it wasn’t going to be so easy. As he passed Stacy’s and Ted’s cubicles again, he heard her say, “I’m just concerned about your health is all.”

    Instead of making the right back towards Joe’s office, Kendrick went left to the office he noticed when he first passed. On the door, an old brass plaque read “Gus Strummer, Engineer.” Kendrick knocked.

    “Since when do we knock here?” a gusty baritone voice rang out. Kendrick pushed the door open to find an exceptionally large man in an even larger suit enjoying an only slightly smaller brown bag lunch. Kendrick saw three sandwiches bursting forth with deli meat, sliced tomatoes, and lettuce; three hardboiled eggs, what looked to be a pint of potato salad, two bags of potato chips, a banana (pushed to the edge of the desk), two puddings, a box of animal crackers and two cans of root beer. The man looked at Kendrick and leaned back in his chair with a mayonnaise laced smirk.

    “My wife does all this. Nice huh? Except she keeps wasting space with this stuff,” he said, cocking his head bitterly at the banana, “Potassium, she says. Want it?”

    “No, thanks.”

    “So, you’re the private dick, huh? On the case of the kidnapped cakes. How’s the investigation going?”
    “Fine, I suppose.”

    “It’s a mind tickler,” Gus said, biting an egg in half, “Almost as mysterious as it is funny. Those two.” Gus shook his head and chuckled.

    “Do they do this kind of thing often?”

    “Private dicks to find cakes, no. But it’s always something. They’re married sworn enemies. To me, the whole thing is simple, if the employees can’t act civilized then stop bringing the cakes in, you know?”
    “Joe seems to think the gesture means something to the staff.”

    “Joe thinks making Marina bring in them cakes means something.”

    “Do you like cake?”

    “Hell, do I look like I like cake? Cake and I go way back, but if I want one that bad, I go buy it.”

    Exactly, Kendrick thougth.

    “Well,” Kendrick said, rising from his chair, “Guess I’ll go talk to the wife.”

    “Enjoy,” Gus said, and popped a whole egg in his mouth.

    Kendrick could hear the whiny, nasal griping once he was back in the hall. No wonder Gus’ door was closed.

    “It’s not about cake, Joe. It’s about respect. That’s what you don’t get. It’s about letting these people know who is boss.”

    Kendrick stopped and grinned. Least she understood what the case was about.

    “I know,” Joe said, “Once you say something two hundred times I start to get it.”

    “Oh shut up.”

    As soon as Kendrick darkened the doorway, a magenta ball of curls swung to reveal a pretty face buried in make-up.

    “Glad to see you eventually found your way back from the bathroom. Since Joe was dumb enough to pay you in advance, I figured we’d find you at the nearest bar.”

    “No such luck,” Kendrick said, “just talking to some of your employees.”

    “Okay Joe, get out. Let me get this over with,” she said.

    By the time Kendrick closed the door, she was already over in Joe’s chair behind the desk. This was helpful to Kendrick—petty people were always the easiest.

    “You figure out it was Tess yet? Everyone knows its Tess,” Marina said.

    Kendrick took his time sitting down and then met her eyes passively, and said nothing.

    “Let me guess, you’re a retired plumber who read a book on how to be a private detective. What’s wrong with gardening or woodworking? As soon as I get rid of you, I can hire a professional.”

    Kendrick yawned.

    She made her back rigid and glared at him, “You’re wasting my time, you know?”

    “Is that why you stopped baking the cakes, your busy schedule?”

    She flinched.

    “No one ever noticed.”

    “Then how do I know?”

    That stopped her mouth for only a second.

    “So you’re saying that drunk out there stole my cakes cause I didn’t bake them myself. Joe doesn’t realize that he could replace her at two thirds the pay and with five times more efficiency.”

    “Why did it bother you so much, making those cakes?”

    “For those ingrates. Coming in here with a cake I especially made for them. It’s ridiculous. I was finally able to put an end to making cakes for the grease monkeys in back. Most of those people out back are convicts; half are Mexicans that can barely speak English.”

    “In Los Angeles, you’re kidding.”

    “I don’t want to bake cakes for my gardener either.”

    “Give it a rest.”

    “What did you say?”

    “You heard me. You’re my client, not Joe, or the company, but I won’t be manhandled by you. So just answer the questions.”

    She pursed her lips together so hard a few small flakes of foundation rained off her face.

    “Do you have any idea what time of day the cakes were stolen?” Kendrick asked.

    “No. Joe brought them in when he opened up in the morning. Put them in the fridge. Everyone else arrives around eight. We always do the cake thing around two p.m. and I’d come at one-thirty to unwrap it.

    “Was any evidence of the cake ever found?”

    “The first one was dumped over the wall out back. The second one was never found. Joe had everyone look, but they never found anything. Tess probably put it in her car.”

    “How much of the first cake was eaten?”

    “I don’t know. What does that have to do with anything?”

    “What about the cake container?”

    “The first time it was put back into the refrigerator. We never found the container after the second one disappeared.”

    “When did you start buying the cakes?”

    “Two months ago was the first time. I baked cakes for these people for ten years. Seventeen cakes a year, until four years ago. Even baked my own damn birthday cake.”

    “So the first store-bought cake was two months ago, when was the second one?”

    “The first cake that disappeared.”

    Kendrick asked Joe to have everyone meet in the conference room in fifteen minutes, except the convicts in back. When you’re on parole, you don’t steal cakes and throw them over walls. And he didn’t see much profit in going through the charade of talking with Tess. But he did need the others in the room to play the culprit off of.

    While Joe was gathering everyone up, Kendrick found a hole in the fence to the vacant lot behind Farmers Plumbing and started to look for the body. He figured rats and flies had had a field day with it, but this was the only stone unturned. It was lying face down in some gravel and dirt. Fortunately, only ants had found the cake and it was apparent no one had eaten from the carcass before they dumped it. As he immediately suspected, this was not about eating cake. He could see some small flourishes of frosting at the base of the cake, so precise it looked like a computer did it. Nope, there is no way that woman went to that much trouble.

    The mood in the small conference room was probably as jolly as one of their birthday parties, except there was no cake, just a lot of suspicion—and some giggling from Stacy. Ted was next to her, looking sullen. Kendrick was only curious for a moment when he saw that shaven face. Much easier to clean a face full of cake when there wasn’t a beard on it, but Ted didn’t seem the type. Kendrick coughed and began.

    “I’ve been hired to find the person who stole Marina’s cakes. Joe said the unfortunate part of all this was that he was going to have to fire the culprit. He thinks of you people as family, but you can’t steal two cakes and expect to get away with it, right Joe?”

    Kendrick looked around at the faces in the room to check their temperature, taking special note of one. Everyone was looking at Joe. He said he hoped Kendrick didn’t find the person who did it, now look at him.

    “That’s right,” Marina answered.

    “I don’t know if the fact that Marina didn’t bake the cakes herself is what prompted this person, maybe the bakery made them that much better.”

    He saw the face, not even a small register of shock. Now all he had to do was pop the villain out.

    “Gus Strummer is the one who stole the cakes,” Kendrick pronounced.

    Everyone gasped and turned to the fat engineer; while Kendrick faced the guilty party. He got the right gauge on Gus, he was a little shocked, but kept his mouth shut.

    “An insatiable appetite and the only other office where a man can shut the door and gorge himself on cake,” Kendrick said aloud, “but I doubt it was worth losing your job over.”

    Gus didn’t say anything, a smart guy.

    “Well Joe, should I call the cops?” Kendrick asked.

    He went to the conference table and picked up the phone. Everyone was dead quiet. Poor Tess looked so sleepy she could barely stay upright in her chair; Kendrick could see Juniper had his teeth snagged in her hose and was happily pulling them to pieces.

    “This was always supposed to be a good thing,” Joe said. One look at Joe’s face told Kendrick he had him. Loyalty was probably his greatest trait, and it would be his undoing. Gus was a good guy.   Not the kind of guy you could let go down for you. He was the foundation of this place. Someone Joe respected.

    Joe turned to Marina. “It was you that ruined birthdays by bringing in those cakes. Do you know how embarrassed I was? Two months ago you unwrapped the cake in front of the entire staff and it was so obviously store bought. Everyone knew.”

    “No they didn’t.”

    “Cut the crap, Marina. The cake was pretty. It was level and had trim along the bottom. The birthday greeting on top was in nice red cursive when you always wrote in sloppy block letters. It was three layers instead of your standard two. It was a travesty.”

    “More like it wasn’t a travesty for once,” Stacy whispered to Ted.

    “You?” was all Marina said.

    “I thought maybe something happened to the cake you made. Maybe it fell. Or burned,” Joe said.
    “Never stopped her from bringing them in before,” Stacy whispered.

    “You threw my cakes away!” Marina screamed at Joe.

    “After the first store bought cake, I decided to unwrap the second cake when I got to the office that morning, just to check. I couldn’t let you insult all of us again, so I threw it over the wall and put the container back in the fridge, thinking maybe you’d get the message. Then you did it again! This time I unwrapped it around the corner from our house and just threw the whole damn thing out the window! What else could I do?”

    “You could have said something, Joe,” Gus said. He was grinning at Joe—like, all this over cake.
    Kendrick picked up Juniper and thanked Tess for watching him, and then he went and shook Gus’ hand.

    “Sorry about that.”

    “No worries. I figured you knew what you were doing.”

* * *

    On the way home, Kendrick stopped at an upscale bakery in Santa Monica and bought a nice chocolate cake with the $100 bill. He was surprised to find he missed Rachel during the day, something he didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy since retiring. His son’s idea worked. Three hours on the job, including the commute, made it $33 an hour and he was done: case closed. As soon as he opened the door, he smelled what he assumed was blackened salmon. Kendrick guiltily remembered they were supposed to make this together tonight. Kendrick could smell the almonds and cilantro involved. Before retirement Kendrick wouldn’t have been able to tell that and now discovered he liked knowing. They were the clues to how the dish might taste.

    Rachel was still angry, but gushed over the beautiful cake Kendrick had brought home. In thirty five years of marriage, Kendrick had never brought a cake home. He knew he was safe when she brought him a glass of bourbon while he was reading the paper.

    “I just don’t know what I’d do without you, Kendrick,” Rachel said softly, sitting down next to him on the couch, “After all this time I just want to know you’re safe.”

    “You never have to worry. I know how to deal with dangerous characters.”

    She looked into his eyes, and clenched her jaw: this is what she does when she doesn’t want to cry, Kendrick thought.

    “I was safe all day, I promise,” Kendrick said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.
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Bio:
Andrew Marshall was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, but has now expatriated to Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received his MFA in playwriting from USC. In 2011, his short story, “To the curb,” was published in Red Wheelbarrow. In 2005, he wrote and directed the professional theater production of his play, Pan, with Long Beach Shakespeare Company. In 2003, his play, Emptier, was produced at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood and directed by Kristin Hanggi. His play Personal Stigmata received a staged reading at Theater of Note in Hollywood in 2004. Currently, he is attending Vermont College of Fine Arts and writing a novel, Hendo.