Wishbone Grpahics

The Texas heat, even in the fall, makes your blood boil, so an investigation not bubbling with homicide is a gasp of cool air. Your case today: Who is Steve Copling? A magnifying glass is no stronger than your detective eyes, but in this case, your strongest clues will surface from a witness.

Miriam Smith is the office manager of Wishbone Graphics – the last place your suspect was seen. "He was a nice looking man, wearing a police uniform, probably 5' 8" or 5' 9."

"What time do you think he left the premises?" you ask.

"I suppose it was nearly 3 o'clock. He was carrying a green book and a water bottle."

"A water bottle?"

"Well, it was Ozarka, what I purchase for the office, so maybe he had been in the kitchen."

You look up from your notepad and Miriam is halfway there. She swings open the refrigerator looking for a clue. Meanwhile, your eyes drift to a Sony tape recorder sitting on the kitchen table. Dare you push PLAY?

PLAY.

"I was born in St. Louis, Missouri," a man's voice moves through the speaker.

"I read that you are married, have three sons and a grandson," a lady's voice follows behind.

"My wife and I are celebrating 28 years."

"And you have 25 years in law enforcement experience? How long have you been writing?"

"Since the summer of '93."

STOP.

If this is Steve Copling, all your answers are spilling through a machine! You take notes faster than your heart is pumping.

PLAY.

"My sister was thinking about writing a screenplay, a murder mystery. I agreed to write a chapter in manuscript form as a favor to her. The story started taking off."

Mystery man = mystery writer? you write with a question mark the size of a gun trigger.

"How long have you worked in Plano?"

"I came to the Plano Police Department in the summer of 1980, but I actually started working in Plano at a plumbing shop, Terrell Plumbing, in June of 1978."

PPD, you scribble ... and the uniform Miriam mentioned. ... This must be Steve Copling!

"What are your duties?"

"My duties as a lieutenant are to oversee the operation of the patrol division. Our police department is broken into first, second, third, fourth and fifth watch. I supervise five first-watch sergeants and one second-watch sergeant. Those six sergeants in turn supervise anywhere from seven to 11 officers each. So, I’m responsible for 50 to 60 officers.

"The SWAT team in Plano is made up of officers that are filtered throughout the department. Their full-time jobs may be a patrol officer or a detective, and then they have part-time duties as SWAT officers. We have one full-time emergency services person that is a lieutenant, and he is our Homeland Security coordinator. Currently, I serve as his backup."

"Well, let's return to your writing, Why do you write mystery crime novels?"

"When I’m writing, I can have my cops say anything within reason that I want them to say. So many times there are things that I would love to say or do as a policeman that I can’t. I’m bound by rules, regulations and state law. I’m bound by ethics and personal moral code. But when I'm writing a police character, I’m able to disconnect from my reality."

The reporter on the other end probes more. "Is there a character that you relate most to in the Rush/Chinbroski novels?"

The green book - A Rush/Chinbroski novel, you jot down.

"I relate to both of them on some level. Chinbroski is rougher around the edges. He is more politically incorrect. He is more apt to speak his mind and take off on a tangent."

Copling pauses. "But I also relate to Detective Rush: I’m gonna follow the rules. I’m gonna think about the consequences," he says seriously.

"I didn’t write these characters as an extension of myself, really. I wrote characters that hopefully are interesting to the readers. The main character, Greg Rush, is loosely – and let me emphasize loosely – based on our police chief."

You know him well. Plano's police chief Gregory Rushin was the homicide sergeant detective before he was promoted to lieutenant.

"Tell me about The Shooting Season."

Your heart stops while your ears inch toward the recorder. A shooting season?

"The Shooting Season is the second in the Rush/Chinbroski series. It's about a marksman, a precision shooter. Back in the late '80s, I was the head sniper on the SWAT team here. I received long-distance precision shooting training and realized how hard it would be for law enforcement to catch a precision shooter who understood police tactics. That was a story I always wanted to write. In fact, I wrote The Shooting Season before I wrote The Listener.

"So it's about two boys who as 13-year-olds attend a summer camp. One of the boys severely betrays the other and that betrayal leads to this boy’s downfall. Fast forward 30 years and this boy is a psychopath. He's decided to pay the other boy back, so he devises these elaborate shooting seasons. After the lead homicide detective in each of these cities is killed, he disappears for a year. And because it’s July 24 in year four, the sniper is going to hit somewhere. Well, he hits Plano.

"Have any advice for an aspiring writer?"

"Join a writers' group who's willing to be brutally honest. I have written sentences that I thought were literary brilliance and the writers' group will say, ‘You’ve got to cut that.' Your writers' group needs to have a sharp editing pencil."

He continues. "There’s a saying in the literary world: ‘Books aren’t written. They’re rewritten.’ That is so true."

"Will you write a book outside this genre?"

"I won’t ever write a romance!" Copling fires back with a laugh.

"I’ve started a second police series. And I’ve got two or three chapters finished in a psychological thriller. I’m going to see if I can spread my wings a little bit ... see if I can write beyond the Rush/Chinbroski series."

Steve Copling. You jot down. Father. Husband. Lieutenant. Author. The easiest case I've ever had to solve.

STOP.

EJECT.

Case closed.

Excerpt from The Shooting Season from www.stevecopling.com

With a sense of dread working its way from the very depths of his gut, Detective Greg Rush stood just inside the crime scene tape and observed the building mass of humanity.

The crowd of onlookers stood quietly, reverently, as though each of them knew that either Rush or his partner had just been sentenced to death.

And one of them probably had. Although not yet confirmed, there was no doubt in Rush’s mind that the body lying forty yards away was that of a doctor. Then, over the next month, a lawyer would be gunned down, followed by a judge, and finally one of the homicide detectives assigned to investigate the first three shootings. Which meant him, probably. Or Rick Chinbroski, who stood beside him, face tight with stress, sweat running in rivulets out of his flattop.