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Best Man in a Bow Tie
The detective who worked with John on the Bradford case – a hard-working, diligent, bachelor –finally found the girl of his dreams, decided to get married and needed a best man. Who else but John St. John? John didn’t do tuxes or shined shoes, bow ties, or cuff links....
Riding and Writing with Jigsaw
September 1, 2025. Looking back at the photo I took of Detective John “Jigsaw” St. John driving his sky-blue undercover car through LA traffic, my thoughts forty-two years later were the same as I had then – what is he thinking? What puzzle is he trying to solve? Have...
Two Killers. Two Different Crime Scenes. Why?
July 25, 2025. I sit at my desk, forty-one years after I wrote about the Bill Bradford and Bill Bonin serial murder cases, and remember the day he told me the critical importance of the crime scene, “The crime scene is the moment I stand where the killer once stood....
Looking Back on Florence: How a Knock on the Door Can Change Everything
September 2023. My good friend and travel companion and I had a two-week trip to Florence planned for months. We researched the Santa Spirito area where we planned to stay, the Pitti Palace for special exhibits, concerts going on, maybe a side trip or two. We never...
Home Sweet Home: Four of my favorite Bird Nests
A tender reflection on what it means to return home after years of travel — and how memory, identity, and the stories we carry shape the people we become. From the author of Jigsaw & Jane, this post bridges past and present in a heartfelt journey home.
Italy! People I Photographed. Faces I Remember. Who Were They?
April 15. For the first time in five years, I wouldn’t be going to Florence either in the summer or Fall. There’s an old saying, “Life got in the Way.” Does it matter how it got in the way? No. It just did. What mattered was all I’d miss: the streets filled with kids...
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I'm not a big fan of machines.Any machine that comes with a five page or fifty-page manual that assures me the device will make my life better is suspect. The guide almost always comes with a diagram and words I don't understand.Last year Jim and I said good-bye to our usual summer vacation of art museums, off-the-road-haunts, and pizza cafes in Florence and signed up for a class sponsored by Smithsonian Tours titled: Secrets and Spies: Britian and the Second World War." Bring on James Bond! My excitement monitor went off the chart when I started reading Sinclair McKay's "The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking Center and the Men and Women who worked there."McCay's writing and the story captured my imagination like a first- rate spy novel. Yet I wondered how a device that looked like a typewriter with a standard 26 letter keyboard and electrical wiring could be the star of the show? Yet that's exactly what Enigma did. This machine saved thousands of lives and shortened the war by at least a year.How did Enigma work?Enigma was a cipher device that encrypted military communications for Nazi Germany. This engineering marvel could produce 157,962,555,217,826,360,000 different configurations. Codebreakers had to break the code before midnight when the German's changed the settings. Enigma seemed mathematically impenetrable. Until mathematician Alan Turning cracked the code.McCay wrote: "It is broadly assumed nowadays that the work at Bletchley required inmates to be near-autistic, socially inept geniuses. In fact, the most prized quality would have to be a certain nimbleness and litheness of mind, the ability to approach and solve a problem from hitherto unconsidered angles."I cannot wait to be in the same room as this wonderous machine. Then listen to a lecture given by a doctoral candidate.
June 10, 2026. Smithsonian at Oxford. The endless grim and glum never seemed to end. About March, Jim and I started to think about Spring vacation.Should we return to Florence? Round two of cathedrals, pizza and pickpockets? Not this time. Africa? If I never see another Wildebeest it won't be too soon. Jordan is fascinating, but vacationing in a war zone is risky. Hawaii? Beaches and Palm trees? No thanks.I suggested we take a vacation that wouldn't be like any other. Instead of following a tour guide with a red flag through a crowd of tourists, why not attend lectures given by experts, a syllabus, and a world-famous library to explore instead of a bookstore.The day I discovered Smithsonian Tours I knew I'd found the answer. Our day would begin in a classroom not a palace or museum. We'd be given reading lists, dine at the coveted High Table at Merton College, drink gallons of tea, have a go at punting and attend a recital of Christ Church Evensong.The title of our tour was "Smithsonian at Oxford." The list of classes:1) Archeology of Britain. 2) Country Houses in English Society.3) History of Dreaming Spires: Art and Architecture in Oxford.4) Secrets and Spies: Britain and the Second War.5) The age of Winston Churchill.One class stood out above all the rest: Secrets and Spies. The course will look at World War II as a catalyst for military intervention and how, in the hands of spooks, spies and codebreakers how clandestine warfare technology was implemented. Jim and I will live in the dorm instead of our usual VRBO. I imagine lots of late-night discussions, prowling the campus, and new friends.I can hardly wait.
March 1999. Before my much anticipated Russian adventure with Grandma Kay, I decided to do a little homework before we stepped off the Aeroflot jet.I'd read from the US Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999, that Russia "was in a state of rapid transition and deep crisis, shaped by the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic turmoil and political instability. The country was in a state of lawlessness. Criminal groups wielded real power and ordinary citizens sought protection from gangs."In less than two weeks, my mom and I would board one of those jets for a "once-in-a-lifetime tour of the Hermitage Museum. Then we'd visit St. Petersburg and knowing my mother, we'd hop on buses to points beyond never knowing exactly where we'd land."Mom!" I grabbed the article and waved it in the air. "I know the reason we're going to Russia is to see great art, but did you know about the gangs, the violence, the kidnappings, the political instability?"She put down the crossword puzzle and gave me "that look." "We don't just get to see paintings," she said. "We have the rare opportunity to visit a country deciding it's future. Communism or democracy? Putin or Yeltsin? We'll learn how Russians live. What they eat. Music they listen to. What their kids do for fun." I girded myself for another trip with Grandma Kay. The trailblazer. Her love affair with adventure sometimes terrified me like the times she'd step into a bus with no fare in her purse or idea where it was going. She'd bypass the conductor with a sly smile saying she didn't speak the language. In all our travels, she never once paid for a bus ride. I'd learned a trip with Grandma Kay meant going light on creature comforts - no heat, no bathtub, maybe the KGB listening to our conversations, no elevator, no Peppermint Stick ice cream. But I always looked forward to another trip with my mom. She was a delightful mix of Anthomy Bourdain and Martha Stewart. Is it any wonder she divorced her last husband because he was boring?
April 22, 2026. Russia was much in the news today and for a reason I can't explain, I read the headline of the Moscow News: Portrait of a Nation. How Ordinary Russians' Lives Have Changed in in the 3 Years War," and recalled the phone call my mother made to me the summer of 1995. She was ready to make reservations for us to travel to Russia because she wanted to see Da Vinci's "Last Supper". There would be over 300 paintings. The problem was the museum would only be open for three hours each day."We're going to Russia!" she explained with girlish enthusiasm. ""You're joking," I said. "Why not Florence? Or Costa Rica? Or New York. I'd even go to Alaska.""Listen to this! I found an apartment from an ad in the San Diego Tribune. The apartment has five stories, no elevator, but think of the exercise we'll get! There's no hot water, or bathtub, or shower but there's a sink. We can put up with a little hardship.""We're going to take baths in a sink? You've gone off the deep end for a few paintings! The KGB will bug our room. The stores will be out of food. We can't speak a word of Russian...""Part of the reason for traveling is to see how other cultures live, she said in her teacher-voice I knew so well."I tried to untie the growing knot in my stomach. We'd be flying on Aeroflot, the Russian airline with a long history of fatal accidents. I imagined myself dying in an airplane crash, starving on a diet of bread and milk, and being followed by the scary men of the KGB. May, 1995. Guess what? Aeroflot wasn't Emirates but we made it from the airport to the train station. The hotel didn't have room service or extra towels, but the cab driver was a charming chap who had a lively conversation with my mother even though he didn't speak English and my mother didn't speak Russian. Next Chapter: Kay and Jane found a Russian they never imagined. Stay tuned.
No matter what city, what country, what time of day, I'm always ready with my camera to capture those impromptu moments between people be they on a park bench, a stool or standing on the sidewalkWhy do those moments intrigue me?Those are moments during the day when friends don't need a device to communicate. What they say matters enough to get together and connect.The ladies on the park bench? I wanted to join them and hear what they were talking about. The men on stools with their lunch or dinner looked intent on their conversation. have stopped for a curbside meal. And the street where these ladies stopped whatever they were doing to talk about what? Did it matter?They were sharing a moment minus the machine that separates us all. Humanity at it best. Together sharing a moment.
When I saw the lead article of the February 12th issue of National Geographic magazine written by Josua Rapp Learn, I stopped sorting through mail to read a love story like no other. It began, "Romeo, Once The Last Kown Frog of His Kind Died. But the discovery raised hopes for other species." My first thought was a Romeo the Frog romance doesn't quite compare to other great love stories like Romeo and Juliet, Napolean and Josephine, and Gone with the Wind. But for a creative frog yearning for to find his Juliet, think of all the possibilities for a romantic interlude! Floating Lilly pads, dark corners beneath rocks and pebbles for cuddling, and babbling brooks for a chance to croak a romantic love song.According to Life Science Plus: "For ten long years, the lonely bachelor named Romeo, a Senuecas Water Frog was the last known frog of his kind. He lived out his days alone, calling out for a mate, but hearing only clicks, of cameras and clacks of humans. After a decade of coming up empty-handed significant change on January 15, 2019 when the Global Wildlife Conservation and Museo de Historia Alcide d' Orbigny discovered wild sehuencas water frogs on an expedition to the Bolivian Rain Forest. All of this comes after Romeo received global attention last year from his Match.com profile (yes, really) which proclaimed "I'm literally the last of my species...that's why I'm here - in hopes of finding my perfect match so we can save our own kind." I didn't exactly reach for my Kleenex after reading Romeo's story, but I did feel a new sadness and heightened concern for not just frogs, but every other creature sharing our planet. The Romeo and Juliet story for humans must not end in tragedy.