S8E20 Audubon's Ghost

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you in the heart of a mystery. All stories are structured to challenge you to beat the detective to the solution. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes.The rules for law and order create the boundaries for civil co-existence and, ideally, the backdrops for individuals, families, and companies to grow and thrive. Breaking these rules puts civil order at risk. And while murder is the Big Daddy of crimes, codified ordinances across municipal divisions, counties, states, and countries show the nearly endless ways there are to create mayhem. This season, we put our detective skills to the test. This is Season 8, Anything but Murder. This is Episode 20, menacing is the featured crime. This is Audubon’s Ghost by Margaret S. HamiltonDeliberationNick isn’t getting the crime free honeymoon Lizzie promised him. With our help, they can close the book on this bird-brained caper. A real Audubon painting was hidden away and someone is willing to menace to get it. Here are the suspects in the order that we met themAl McGuire, actor who claimed to be an Australian touristSam Broussard, professional thief and con artistOfficer Landry, police officer who saved Ed and CarolTony Robichaux, curator of the Audubon Museum at Oakley PlantationDr. Nakamura, rightful owner of the Audubon watercolorsABOUT Menacing as a crimeIn general, menacing is where a person uses a threat or action to cause another person to be in fear of serious bodily damage or death. It can range from a misdemeanor to a felony depending on the severity. Definitions do vary somewhat by state. There aren’t “famous” cases of menacing because, alone, it is not considered a serious crime. Menacing does often end up being a component of other charges such as stalking and harassment. A few cases for you to gnaw on. In 2008, Christopher Szaz pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges for threatening employees of the National Council of La Raza and the Council on American Islamic Relations. He sent emails threatening to bomb offices and kill employees, which met the legal definition of menacing. ABOUT Margaret S. HamiltonMargaret S. Hamilton is the author of forty short stories, many of them set in the fictional small town of Jericho, Ohio. She has also published stories set in the Dordogne region of southwest France, Cape Cod, New Orleans, and 1950’s Cincinnati.Margaret’s debut traditional mystery, What the Artist left Behind, is on submission. It was a 2019 Daphne Mainstream Mystery Finalist. She is writing the next two books in her Jericho Mysteries series about amateur sleuth Lizzie Christopher and her husband Nick Cameron.Margaret is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, and blogs monthly on the Writers Who Kill blog. She lives in suburban Cincinnati with her husband and two standard poodles, Jazz and Louie. She is an avid traveler, gardener, and photographer.WRAP UPThat wraps this episode of Mysteries to Die For. Support our show by subscribing, telling a mystery lover about us, and giving us a five-star review. Check out our NEW website m2d4podcast.com for links to this season’s authors.Mysteries to Die For is hosted by TG Wolff and Jack Wolff. Audubon’s Ghost was written by Margaret S. Hamilton. Music and production are by Jack Wolff. Episode art is by TG Wolff. Join us next week for a Toe Tag, which is the first chapter from a fresh release in the mystery, crime, or thriller genre. Then come back in two weeks for our next original story where home burglary is the featured murderless crime. It’s Karen and the Cul-De-Sac Caper by Kyra Jacobs