Dave Everett, my favorite small town cop
This article originally appeared in Mystery Readers Journal: Small Town Cops II (volume 32, No 4)
I write cozy style mysteries with a Realtor protagonist named Regan McHenry. She comes across the occasional body selling houses — she and her husband even bought a house with a partially mummified body in it — and she has friends and clients who sometimes find themselves in a mess. She’s a bit of a meddler who tries to help, but it’s not reasonable to think when she becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that she could stroll into the police station, sit down with a cop, and ask to be filled in on what’s happening. Enter her best friend, Dave Everett.
His official title is Santa Cruz Police and Community Relations Ombudsman. He used to be a cop until he lost an eye in a shootout. He was going to be forced into an early retirement, but convinced the police department that, since Santa Cruz police and the community at large don’t always see eye to eye, (no irony intended) they needed him to handle the media, do public relations, and help out with paperwork and anything else that could be done from a desk.
He’s a meddler, too, and a gossip, or rather a slightly bored sort of ex-cop who seems to have his fingers in many law enforcement pies and insinuates himself, at least verbally, into many investigations. Through him, Regan can get information she needs.
It might be argued that Santa Cruz, population over 62,000 is too big to be considered a small town, but Dave and I would argue otherwise. You’ve heard of the rule about six degrees of separation, haven’t you? Well, in Santa Cruz, it’s more like one degree of separation. I was in my doctor’s office recently and started talking to the receptionist. Before our conversation ended, we discovered his wife did the same job for my husband’s doctor, that his aunts are Realtors I know well as is his best friend, and that he knows one of my sons because they are both musicians. He and his wife intended to come to my recent book signing but couldn’t because his band was hired to play at the birthday party of my former aerobics instructor whose husband is a real police sergeant who in a non-made-up Santa Cruz reality would work with Dave. See why Dave and I think of Santa Cruz as a small town?
Dave is special to me because when I started writing, all my characters began as people I knew. I began outlining my stories using their real names. They quickly got renamed as they were developed and took on their own personalities … all except for Dave who is based on my real one-eyed former cop friend. In the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series he got a new last name and a new job, got blended with my twin cousins who were cops, and the local police officer who does media interviews, but Dave is still the one I visualize as I write his character.
Although my real Dave says he doesn’t sound at all like Dave Everett, he does. He and I don’t tease one another the way Dave and Regan do, and I make up what I call his “Daveisms,” but Dave really could say them. In fact I’ve almost heard him say, “I think you’re right about him being a bully, and bullies don’t usually make waves once they run into bigger, badder dogs,” or “I wouldn’t lose sleep over tinfoil momma’s baby boy.” I love writing him and coming up with phrases he would use. Dave has evolved; he’s not my real friend any longer, but he really has become Regan’s best friend which makes him special to me.
Dave will always have a prominent place in Regan McHenry Real Estate mysteries. Several times in the early books, I intended for him to have a smaller role, but he wouldn’t stand for it. Sometimes he talks to me as I write and demands a more prominent part and informs me of facts about him that I didn’t know — like that he speaks German, for example — that allow me to use him for extra duty. It’s worth it to let him have his run in the books because it’s fun for me to watch him get agitated and worried because of Regan.
Dave is constantly frustrated by Regan’s foibles but it’s his own fault in part. After six books you would think he would learn that sayings something like, “Your house, your murder,” to Regan would only egg her on, but they have such a friendly competition in their relationship he sometimes forgets himself and so he does...and she’s sets off playing amateur sleuth.
I write cozy style mysteries with a Realtor protagonist named Regan McHenry. She comes across the occasional body selling houses — she and her husband even bought a house with a partially mummified body in it — and she has friends and clients who sometimes find themselves in a mess. She’s a bit of a meddler who tries to help, but it’s not reasonable to think when she becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that she could stroll into the police station, sit down with a cop, and ask to be filled in on what’s happening. Enter her best friend, Dave Everett.
His official title is Santa Cruz Police and Community Relations Ombudsman. He used to be a cop until he lost an eye in a shootout. He was going to be forced into an early retirement, but convinced the police department that, since Santa Cruz police and the community at large don’t always see eye to eye, (no irony intended) they needed him to handle the media, do public relations, and help out with paperwork and anything else that could be done from a desk.
He’s a meddler, too, and a gossip, or rather a slightly bored sort of ex-cop who seems to have his fingers in many law enforcement pies and insinuates himself, at least verbally, into many investigations. Through him, Regan can get information she needs.
It might be argued that Santa Cruz, population over 62,000 is too big to be considered a small town, but Dave and I would argue otherwise. You’ve heard of the rule about six degrees of separation, haven’t you? Well, in Santa Cruz, it’s more like one degree of separation. I was in my doctor’s office recently and started talking to the receptionist. Before our conversation ended, we discovered his wife did the same job for my husband’s doctor, that his aunts are Realtors I know well as is his best friend, and that he knows one of my sons because they are both musicians. He and his wife intended to come to my recent book signing but couldn’t because his band was hired to play at the birthday party of my former aerobics instructor whose husband is a real police sergeant who in a non-made-up Santa Cruz reality would work with Dave. See why Dave and I think of Santa Cruz as a small town?
Dave is special to me because when I started writing, all my characters began as people I knew. I began outlining my stories using their real names. They quickly got renamed as they were developed and took on their own personalities … all except for Dave who is based on my real one-eyed former cop friend. In the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series he got a new last name and a new job, got blended with my twin cousins who were cops, and the local police officer who does media interviews, but Dave is still the one I visualize as I write his character.
Although my real Dave says he doesn’t sound at all like Dave Everett, he does. He and I don’t tease one another the way Dave and Regan do, and I make up what I call his “Daveisms,” but Dave really could say them. In fact I’ve almost heard him say, “I think you’re right about him being a bully, and bullies don’t usually make waves once they run into bigger, badder dogs,” or “I wouldn’t lose sleep over tinfoil momma’s baby boy.” I love writing him and coming up with phrases he would use. Dave has evolved; he’s not my real friend any longer, but he really has become Regan’s best friend which makes him special to me.
Dave will always have a prominent place in Regan McHenry Real Estate mysteries. Several times in the early books, I intended for him to have a smaller role, but he wouldn’t stand for it. Sometimes he talks to me as I write and demands a more prominent part and informs me of facts about him that I didn’t know — like that he speaks German, for example — that allow me to use him for extra duty. It’s worth it to let him have his run in the books because it’s fun for me to watch him get agitated and worried because of Regan.
Dave is constantly frustrated by Regan’s foibles but it’s his own fault in part. After six books you would think he would learn that sayings something like, “Your house, your murder,” to Regan would only egg her on, but they have such a friendly competition in their relationship he sometimes forgets himself and so he does...and she’s sets off playing amateur sleuth.
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