An Interview with Liz Milliron by E. B. Davis

State Trooper Jim Duncan’s quiet overnight shift turns deadly when fire destroys a ski lodge at a local resort and the first responders find a man’s body inside. What starts as a suspicious accident quickly becomes sinister when the autopsy proves the victim is not the man who rented the cabin. Jim’s left with three questions. Who is John Doe? Why was he at the ski lodge? And who hated him enough to kill him?

Assistant Public Defender Sally Castle, still reeling after the events of several months earlier, tries to bury her feelings of guilt and fear in her work.

When an anonymous note from a secret admirer arrives at the courthouse, she brushes it off as an empty threat. As the missives, each one darker than the last, continue to arrive at her office as well as her home, Sally is forced to review all of the possibilities. Is the letter writer a person from her legal past? Or is the threat closer to home?

As the questions multiply, Jim and Sally are thrown into a race to find a murderer as well as a stalker…before Sally ends up facing more than an unwanted pen pal.

http://www.lizmilliron.com/mysteries/

 

Heaven Has No Rage, kept me turning the pages. Her two main characters, Jim Duncan—a Pennsylvania State Trooper, and Sally Castle—a public defender, tell the story, which alternates between the two, pushing the story forward.

Liz Milliron’s second book in her Laurel Highlands mystery series,

Liz was previously interviewed by Grace Topping in August 2018 about her first book in this series, Root Of All Evil. Here is the link. Please welcome Liz Milliron back to WWK.

                                                                                 E. B. Davis

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Your book is set in southwestern Pennsylvania. Are all the towns in the book outside of Pittsburgh? Frostburg is in Maryland. Where is Punxy?

Most of the places I use are in southwestern PA, yes. Punxy – Punxsutawney, home of the (in)famous groundhog – is slightly northeast of Pittsburgh, about an hour and a half drive. The Frostburg I mention is actually Frostburg, PA. It is about five miles away from Punxy.

What is a FTO?

FTO = Field Training Officer. In many police departments, after a recruit graduates from the academy, she spends time under the supervision of an experienced officer – kind of a probation period. That period is designed to evaluate the new officer’s conduct in real-world situations and reveal any issues that would not be uncovered in the classroom. Not every experienced officer is an FTO; it’s a special certification.

McAllister trained under Duncan and calls him Boss. She does a lot of research for him. Why? How does she have the time considering she has her own duties now?

McAllister’s use of the nickname “Boss” is an inside joke that goes back to Root of All Evil. She has enormous respect for Duncan because of events that transpired during her training period (and are talked about in Root). Because of that respect, she is willing to make time to help him out – even her own personal time.

What is the relationship among city/county-township and state police?

It really depends on the city/county/township. There are a lot of small towns in southwestern PA where the state police are the only police – like Confluence. When you dial 911, you get a trooper. Then there are places with a part-time force that is capable of handling small matters (like bar brawls), but they call the PSP when something big happens, like a murder. You have full-service departments, such as Uniontown, which only call the PSP for specialty support, such as lab services. And finally, big city forces like Pittsburgh, which only need the PSP for assistance (for example, PSP Special Emergency Response Teams and Pittsburgh SWAT will back each other up), lab services, or a higher-level incident (maybe the incident occurred in Pittsburgh, but the suspect has fled the city and there is a state-wide manhunt). In general, the various departments get along – but there’s sometimes some friction because…people.

Duncan is called a “trooper” or a “patrol” cop, but he is investigating as a detective. Do troopers investigate murders? Are there local cops who investigate? Are there also state detectives?

Here I am stretching the truth a little. No, a patrol trooper would not investigate a murder. He would respond to the initial incident, take statements, handle traffic, coordinate with emergency services, etc. However, once the immediate situation is handled, a call would go to the Criminal Investigation division for that Troop (there are several Troops in the PSP that cover various geographic regions. Duncan serves in Troop B.) That trooper, who is in plainclothes, would handle the investigation and is the PSP’s “detectives.” It’s not a rank, but a job within the PSP. If Duncan insists on being involved in murder investigations, he might have to consider a career-path change.

What is Ohiopyle? I assume it is in Ohio, which must be close by, but why is a Pennsylvania State Trooper providing security for an Ohio event?

Ohiopyle is both a town in the Laurel Highlands (in Fayette County, population 59 in 2010) and a state park in Pennsylvania. It is situated on the Youghiogheny River and has a lot of natural/outdoors activities available – hiking, biking (the Great Allegheny Passage goes through there), kayaking, canoeing, camping, etc. Trivia: the name “"Ohiopyle" is derived from the Lenape Indian phrase ahi opihəle which means 'it turns very white', referring to the frothy waterfalls. During the French and Indian War, George Washington decided the falls were too dangerous to ford and took another route on his way to Pittsburgh.

What is a newsboy cap?

Those squashy caps with a tiny brim. Think the caps that newsboys wore in the 1930s when they stood on the street corners hawking papers.

Why does Sally keep second guessing Jim’s intentions? Why does she think she’s caused him pain?

Sally is having a crisis of confidence. Without revealing too much, she believes her decisions led directly to the events at the end of Root of All Evil, where Jim was put in a fairly dangerous and undesirable position. She believes he blames her for what he had to do. At the same time, he seems to care about her, so she’s a little confused.

Tish, Jim’s ex-wife, doesn’t help the situation when she gives Sally her perspective on Jim. Does she tell the truth or is she bitter?

Both. Tish and Jim married very young and Tish was not cut out for the life of a police officer’s wife. She had unrealistic expectations – such as he’d always be able to answer her call and chat in the middle of a shift, or that he’d want to discuss all the events of his day when he got home. And she wanted to live in Pittsburgh, where Jim definitely did not. So yes, she’s bitter but a lot of it has to do with unmet expectations. I guess she’s telling her truth.

Why do you use the term “actor” instead of suspect?

It’s another term police officers use for “suspect,” mostly when talking amongst themselves – the person who performed an action.

Sally has served in the district attorney’s office and is now working as a public defender. Why does she keep working in the public side of the lawyering business instead of private?

Out of law school, Sally wanted to uphold justice and still does. But when she was in prosecution, she saw a lot of people who couldn’t afford the pricey private lawyers and who deserved protection under the law – even if they were guilty. That’s why she went into public defense, so she could protect the people who couldn’t afford a private practice attorney.

I wasn’t sure how the money laundering worked in the buying and selling of properties. I thought that no matter how a property was bought, transactions of ten thousand dollars and above were always reported to the Feds. Isn’t that true? Wouldn’t the Feds question where the money came from?

Yes, you are correct. A person or business must file a form with the Federal government when receiving cash payments of $10,000 from one or multiple transactions. Getting into the details of how it all worked bogged down the pace of the story and wasn’t really necessary. The implication is the people involved in the scam knew how to “cook the books” so the feds wouldn’t get suspicious. And maybe they were anyway – it just doesn’t figure into the story.

Who gets Nero?

I’m not positive, but I think Nero would be returned to the service organization he came from. He would either be given another handler or retired and adopted to be a normal pet.

What’s next for Jim and Sally?

Book three, titled Broken Trust, comes out August 2020. In that one, Jim shows up to the scene of a dead body in a workplace to find it’s a friend. It’s kind of a “busman’s holiday” book because Jim’s scheduled to be on vacation since his sister and her kids are coming to visit, but he feels obligated to investigate not only because the victim is a friend but also because Jim helped get him the job. At the same time, Jim and Sally find their relationship tested all because of a little line in the Code of Ethics – that an attorney may break privilege in the event of a threat to person or property, but she doesn’t have to.