Charles Frenzel

I call Julie who by now is at the office to tell her my immediate schedule. After further adventures at the bank, I have a few extra minutes before Monday’s staff meeting at the office, so I drop by Noel’s office to have a chat about my liability insurance—or soon to be lack of said [...]

“Ms. Nightwing?” The voice belongs to my field tech in Houston, Texas.
“What is it, Laz?” Laz, short for Lazarra. Lazarra Rayburn, my field tech at the Sabine River Nuclear Project. She is a smart young woman that I like a lot. Background noise on the connection blurs her speech.

I pull the sealed tab on the bottle of skimmed milk and pour a slug of soured milk over my beautiful peach. A key turns in the side door in the dining room. Molly Flannigan lets herself into my house with her usual, intimidating flourish. With grace and skill I jerk back the hand with [...]

I’d never make it in paradise. I ask too many questions of management, stuffed animals don’t make me feel warm or cozy, and I stir up trouble when I get bored. I swallow hard against a lump in my throat and then shiver with a sudden chill. For a moment I hope that the dream [...]

Monday Morning “The line of showers that moved through the New Orleans area last night will continue south into the Gulf, today. Monday’s forecast calls for clearing along the coast from Biloxi, Mississippi west to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The marine forecast predicts: northerly winds offshore at fifteen knots, decreasing to five knots by this evening. [...]

             Morgan and Mark eventually made their excuses and wandered off to do what it is that young people do, leaving me sitting alone on the Friendly Lady and doing what old people do—thinking too much and waiting for something to happen.             When I felt a gentle tilt to the deck I [...]

Sam writes in his Journal             The Friendly Lady is a registered sailing vessel of the United States. Sam Friendly is listed as the owner’s name and Captain of the thirty ton sailboat. According to maritime custom, I could offer a marriage on the high seas—or a funeral. Neither occasion has risen.       On deck [...]

Sunday Afternoon with Mark             The fact that I never finished my conversation with Chalmers about Mary bothers me. If my engineer is feeling distracted, I haven’t noticed—but then I’ve been distracted and so I’m not so sure I’m paying much attention to that sort of thing.        When Mark caches up with me [...]

Some History of Chalmers and the Moutons             What a small world. “I had no idea that you know Mary Mouton,” I reply.       “Not so much your Mary Mouton, her parents,” Chalmers says. “Your Mary was a little girl in a pink dress at my father’s funeral. Margaret, Mary’s mother, married Hamilton Mouton [...]

A Friendly Hint of Trouble             Now and then, when I’m feeling particularly villainous, I venture into a local Church where I’m like a driver challenging the local sheriff’s favorite speed trap . The virtuous Morgan Nightwing might have chosen to explain her attendance by discussing her spiritual needs or talking about giving up [...]

An Exchange of Favors              Vidor, Texas had a reputation for being a tough town. Vidor started out life supplying cheap labor for the wildcatters when oil gushed from the Spindletop field. After that, with the oil flowing and drilling at an ebb, the same people sweated at the refineries that processed the raw [...]

Saturday’s are for what?             The reaction from too much Jack Daniels and no food catches up with me at four o’clock on Saturday morning[. My God, was I dreaming or were those Daliks screaming ex-ter-mi-nate on late-night Dr. Who…and what possessed me to watch a James Dean movie? Haven’t I got a bad [...]

             Back at Nightwing Laboratories, while I ponder the depths of my humiliation in receipt for the symphony tickets from Sandy, the afternoon continues to stretch out like a delayed flight to Chicago. A fit of depression hits me—confronted by a Friday night that is now unavoidable, no plans for the evening, nothing in [...]

Lunch with Sandy Meraux             I am having Friday lunch at a popular French Quarter cafe with the youthful, as well as entertaining, Sandy Meraux, an engagement fueled by the upcoming renewal of my lease on her wealthy father’s building where my fledgling business, the Nightwing Testing Laboratory, is located. I’m most fortunate to [...]

Between her husband’s foolishness and her son’s rebellious attitude, how was she supposed to save Cassell Paints from ruin? Nancy Cassell, half owner of the family business, was dressed in a long sleeved blue blouse to protect the fair skin of her arms from the burning sun. To shade her face she wore a wide [...]