And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(95)

“I’ll see what I can do,” Packard promised.

Back at home, with a drowsy dog pressed against his leg, he sat on the couch and stared at his unfinished living room and the makeshift kitchen that looked like something out of a deer camp, and thought about how it would look to Michael when he showed up. There wasn’t time to do much about it between now and then. He needed a better plan, some way to prioritize all the construction that remained and a logical order for getting it done.

The dog, sensing Packard was about to stand up, raised its head, but Packard forced himself to stay sitting. These were the quiet moments he needed to learn to enjoy. The idea was to relax, not replace one kind of work with another.

He worked his fingers through the dog’s scruff. “You need a name,” he said.

His unfinished house had him thinking of all the work his grandfather had done to build the two-story family cabin they used to spend summers at just miles from here. Grandpa Frank had been a man of infinite patience, who never seemed happier than he was while spending time with his grandkids. He’d been the one who taught Packard how to fish and ride a bike. He’d taught him to be a listener rather than a talker. Grandpa’s favorite solution for settling disputes between grandkids was with a toss of a Kennedy half-dollar he always carried in his pocket. Once Grandpa flipped the coin and you called it, there was no more arguing.

“I’m going to name you Franklin ‘Frank’ Packard, after Grandpa,” he said to the dog, putting his face close enough to be licked. “You’re now heir to the Packard estate and all the untaped drywall and exposed wiring you see before you. What do you think?”

The corgi rolled over and showed its belly.

Packard gave him a rub and stood up. “All right then. Let’s go for a walk, Frank.”





A Conversation with the Author


Ben Packard was a long time in the making. When did you first develop him as a character, and why did you decide to give him his own series?

I wrote a novel before And There He Kept Her with the same setting of Sandy Lake. Packard was an insignificant character in that book—a deputy another character describes in crude terms as being gay. Why I made the deputy gay when he only appeared on two pages and was in no way central to the plot is still a mystery. That book was good enough to get several agents to read the whole thing, but they all had issues with the plot. I was so tired of the story that I couldn’t find a solution to the book’s structural problems. I set it aside, but Ben Packard stuck with me. I wanted to know how he ended up in Sandy Lake and what it was like to be a gay man in a small town and in a position of authority. I wrote And There He Kept Her to find out.

Turning the victim of a robbery into a retired serial killer flips the script on readers’ expectations of victimhood. What made you think of a twist like that?

I started with the idea of a man being victimized in his own home and the reasons why he might have to fend for himself. What secrets did he have that he couldn’t call the police for help? I started thinking about a killer who had never been caught, who was old and weak and vulnerable to being preyed upon, just like the women he used to target. There had to be evidence of his past crimes and that’s when I imagined the room in the basement, the chains on the wall, and the door with no handle on the inside.

The landscape of Minnesota and the culture of the small town play a huge role in this story. As a Minnesotan yourself, it seems natural you’d be drawn to the setting. But were there any other reasons you chose Sandy Lake as a backdrop?

I was an Army brat as a kid. My mom was in the military, and we moved every three or four years with no permanent place that felt like home. My dad, on the other hand, has spent most of his life in the same small South Dakota town (population 1,300) where he grew up. We spent summers there as kids.

I’ve always been fascinated by life in small towns—the options for creating community, finding love and meaningful work, the reasons why people stay or come back to small towns, and how the things that we need to consider a place home change over time.

Some authors need a regimented writing schedule, while others work best in marathon writing sessions. Can you talk a little bit about your process?

This is the third novel I’ve written. There were times when I’d put away the book I was working on and not write for months. Eventually I realized if I ever had hopes of publication I needed to be more diligent. I have a day job, so most of my writing is done in the evenings and on weekends. I’m a slow and steady grinder from the first word to the last, and then a heavy reviser. This book took many, many revisions because I had no plan, no outline, and often couldn’t see more than a chapter or two ahead. I don’t recommend it.

Strangely, the reader finds themselves rooting for Emmett when Carl enters the scene. Did you expect this reaction? What were you thinking when you came up with their dynamic?

The same things that made Emmett vulnerable to being preyed upon by Jesse and Jenny also weakened him as a villain. At some point, I realized the story needed an even bigger threat than Emmett. Once I introduced Carl, I wanted there to be a dynamic between him and Emmett where the one with the power over the other kept shifting. Adding Carl also changed the dynamic between Emmett and Jenny. At different points in the story, Emmett is a kidnapper, a murderer, an elderly victim, and a protector all in one. I didn’t assume readers would feel sympathy for Emmett (he’s still a horrible person), but I wanted to challenge their perception of him as the story evolved.