For the next book in the Emily Kincaid series I thought I was going to write about Emily Kincaid as a real estate agent. She arrives at a showing of an old B and B late one summer evening. She walks into the dark house, hunts for a light switch, and trips over a body rolled in an Oriental rug . . .

Well, maybe for a future book. Serendipity took over instead.

I had company and the subject of ghost towns came up. I mentioned Deward, a ghost town off the Mancelona Road, up here in northern Michigan. A week later I thought about the day I visited Deward for a magazine article, and how eerie it felt, with the foundations of the houses and old buildings all that was left above the Manistee River gorge. I knew the history of the vanished lumber town and could hear men�s voices calling to each other. I listened in as women gossiped in the doorways of defunct shops.

While out to dinner soon afterward, my mind wandered as the others around me discussed important things like stocks and economies and gas prices. I imagined Emily driving up and parking outside Deward. She had to find a body so I placed one down on the rocks.

Emily said no.

First, she said, she needed a reason to be at Deward, other than curiosity.

She might be doing a story for the Northern Statesman, a Traverse City newspaper, I suggested.

Emily said no again. She was there because Crazy Harry Mockerman, her neighbor, told her there was a field of wild leeks near Deward and she was looking forward to potato-leek soup.

Back at the restaurant, as we waited for our food to come, I watched Emily approach Deward only to find a woman sleeping under a tree, flowered skirt spread neatly around her, ankles crossed, hands placed on her thighs, big hat pulled down over her face. Of course Emily is careful not to make noise and tip-toes on past. She investigates the ghost town, finds the leeks, pokes around the old foundations and comes on things she is tempted to take away but puts back in situ, as she should.

On the way out to her car the sleeping woman is still there, same position, she hasn�t moved. Emily stops to look at her�ready to apologize for staring should the woman wake up.

Nothing.

Emily approaches, squats down, and says, �M�am?�

Nothing.

As she watches, a fly crawls down the woman�s chin from under the hat.

Emily shakes one of the woman�s feet.

Nothing.

Emily shakes the foot harder.

Nothing.

Then again.

The large straw hat, dislodged, falls to one side. A hundred crawling flies cover the woman�s dead face.

This scenario excited me. Somehow I knew the woman was a shaman�a true healer. Then I had to plan who would kill her, and why. A convention of shamans is about to converge on Leetsville. There will be scammers among the shamans. There will be those out to expose the whole lot as frauds. There will be sweet old ladies and sharp, greedy hucksters. Among them I will find my killer. Or will I? Will it be something unrelated to the shamans? Someone who gains from the woman�s death? Someone from her past? Hmmm . . . I don�t know yet. But I know that any door I open in the first chapter must be closed by the last. The murder must be solved. All sub-plots must be tied up. There must be a logical ending, built on the investigative steps that have come before. The ending must satisfy the reader and leave them content that they haven�t been misled or tricked by the writer.

And so I�ve begun: DEAD _______ SHAMANS. I don�t know that middle part yet, but I will, as soon as Emily shares it with me.

To begin plotting the mystery: Chapter One

    1. Decide on your main character: the investigator.
    2. Decide who will die.
    3. Set up the place the body is found, as part of a larger background.

Bring investigator and body together.