Norman Miller

A Date With Lima: True Crime Writing Sample

Introduces protagonist, antagonist, setting, and conflict

 

Chapter 1: Contempt

One Day Missing

 

It was a pleasant, harmless, sunny day in the Gold Coast on the North Side of Chicago—an elite neighborhood on the border of Lake Shore Drive, along Lake Michigan. I had moved into the condominium in 1993, with my two young daughters, from an apartment that was less than a block away. On the corner of Burton and State Parkway—a block from the Cardinal mansion on North Avenue, bordering Lincoln Park. 

My recently ex-wife, Brigitte, had planned to take my two daughters to Kassel, Germany, to visit their grandparents, Emilia and Karl. Brigitte was a German and Swiss citizen, having been raised in both countries. The agreement for the vacation came after four long years of a contentious battle over custody of the girls. I ended up with physical custody, the girls living with me four days per week. Brigitte and I shared joint legal custody, however, so the girls were confined to residency in the United States.

I knew Brigitte entered the US on a green card, and maintained both of her foreign citizenships—but I had trust in the law to protect the girls and me. Why not? I had retained custody as the father, for what that was worth.

“Give your Dad a hug goodbye,” 

The four of us stood on the steps of my condominium. I hugged Stephanie and Lia tightly at my waist, and, with that, my ex-wife took our girls, ages nine and seven, to the airport. United Flight 944, departing from Chicago O’Hare to Germany, June 30, 1997. Brigitte had scribbled their travel details on a piece of paper for me. “Will stay at Fau Schmidt, Im Tal 46, Schauenburg 2, Germany, PH: 056.”

Despite my objections, this vacation had been approved by my attorney.

“You can’t stop her. Legally, she’s entitled to vacation time with the girls—even to Germany.” 

Mary Beth Powers was the attorney I’d selected to represent me in my divorce proceedings, to terminate my marriage with Brigitte. At the time, Brigitte was involved in a relationship with a foreign diplomat from Peru, so I had valid reason to worry. She had taken vacations with the girls before, but now that the divorce was final, would she return them to me? I felt uneasy, but what could I do?

When I called, regularly, to speak with them during their vacation, they answered each time. But a couple days before their return, no one picked up at their grandparent’s home, where Brigitte and the girls were staying. I let the phone ring for several minutes, with no response, and I called repeatedly, over the following days. No answer. There had to be a rational explanation, I thought. I couldn’t bring myself to believe they wouldn’t return. 

On the day of their expected arrival, I did not receive a phone call from Brigitte, announcing their return to her apartment in Chicago. In fact, I heard nothing. I had returned home to my condominium after a long day at the office, faintly hoping to find my daughters in their bedrooms, working on their artwork, reading, or just passing time. Instead, I found an empty condo on the fourteenth floor, facing the southwest of the city. I went numb, hoping this was all a mistake—that I had the return date wrong, that Brigitte had tried to reach me with a change in plans, that the plane was delayed somewhere, en route to Chicago from Germany. My thoughts spiraled, but I tried to keep the worst from my thoughts, as much as I could. However, my fear that Brigitte would not return loomed over me. A notion that felt more and more possible after our long struggle for custody. Would this be her final triumph, to keep and raise the girls somewhere in Europe? 

Eventually, I buckled. I had to find out if they were on the plane that was due to land at O’Hare. Instead of driving all the way to the airport on the outskirts of the city, I recalled a United Airlines office on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. I reasoned that I could check to see if the girls and Brigitte were actually on board the scheduled flight. At this point, I was overwhelmingly anxious, worried, and I wanted answers. So I made my way there, along the same route the girls and I would take to shop on Michigan Avenue.

Michigan Avenue is a posh array of retail stores, mostly selling clothing, jewelry, and home items. Brooks Brothers, Tiffany’s, Crate and Barrel were mainstays—shops I had taken Lia and Stephanie to, on many occasions. The streets were often clogged with traffic, heavily sprinkled with taxi cabs and buses, and long lights for pedestrians waiting to cross over the wide Avenue. The architecture was reminiscent of the glory days of Chicago—the city with a small-town heart and big shoulders, distinctively Midwestern. Connecting to the past, tour buses still carried gawkers to various attractions where they could, for instance, relive the inglorious days of Chicago’s most infamous citizen, Al Capone.

I reminisced as I made my way to the ticket office. The girls and I had made many trips along Michigan Avenue to shop, sight-see, and get some exercise. We would walk south from our condominium along Lake Shore Drive, until we ended on the “Magnificent Mile,” as it was spectacularly called. Rather than smile, reflecting on my time here with the girls, I was filled with dread.

On the east side of the street, a block away from the bridge over the Chicago River, was the United Airlines ticket office, where I was greeted by a pleasant attendant. I walked up to the counter in the small office:

“I’m trying to find out if my daughters, Stephanie and Lia Abraham, are on United Flight 277, from Washington Dulles to Chicago O’Hare, arriving at 6 pm today?” 

She hesitated for a moment. 

“Sir, I’m not supposed to give out that information, but since you’re their father, I’ll take a look for you.” 

She typed away for a moment on her computer, until her brow began to furrow, “I’m sorry sir, it looks like their seats are unoccupied, but the reservations are still there.” 

My heart dropped. “Any chance there’s a mistake and they’re on the flight?” I asked in a shaky voice. 

“I don’t think so,” she said, with sympathetic eyes. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” 

In shock, I shook my head, thanked her, and promptly left.

Did they change plans? I tried, again, to reach them by telephone, but still, no one answered in Germany, after several attempts. I began to really worry, as the reality started to settle in. Where are they? Surely I’d hear from them soon. Brigitte had always returned them on time after visitation in the past. Could she really do this to me? To our children?

A DATE WITH LIMA
By Dr. Michael Abraham

 

THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT

My mission as the protagonist in this true story is to overcome hopelessness and save my dreams after my ex-wife, Brigitte, and her boyfriend, Luis, a Peruvian Diplomat, abducted my two daughters to South America, and to create a network of high profile allies to assist in the international search in locating and re-abducting them from a foreign land to the United States.

 

THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT

Brigitte is a young, attractive German and Swiss citizen living in the US on a green card. In our relationship, she is angry, explosive, vindictive, and ruthless—a dramatic change from the demure, reserved, and mysterious woman I met on a train in Munich, Germany. She has a marriage breaking affair and later abducts our two young daughters, Stephanie and Lia, to establish a new life in South America with her boyfriend.

 

CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE

1. A DATE WITH LIMA

2. UNSURRENDERED DREAMS

3. THE POWER OF THE LAW

 

DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES

1. THE GIRLS ARE GONE (BEST SELLER, Michael Brodkorb and Allison Mann, 2018)

 

The Girls Are Gone, 2018, is a nonfiction, true crime story of abduction. Like in A Date With Lima. The plots for each are structured in the book temporally, in days missing, with chapter titles that reflect events in the search and return of the children. Each story has legal focus, involving court documents and decisions.

The Girls are Gone follows the story of two girls who vanish in the midst of a parents’ divorce. Similarly, the girls’ father worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while remaining at home. 

 

2. HER ONE MISTAKE (Heidi Perks, 2019)

 

Her One Mistake, 2019, is a fiction thriller that tells the story of a missing child and one devastating mistake. Described as “seriously page turning, suspenseful, and dark,” the protagonist goes on a journey to unwind a mystery and find her missing daughter.

A Date With Lima’s Michael makes one devastating mistake as well - which leads to his daughters being abducted overseas and remaining there until he can unwind a mystery of his own. While A Date With Lima exists in the nonfiction, true crime genre, it reads very much like a thriller of proportions similar to Her One Mistake.

 

HOOK LINE(LOGLINE) CORE WOUND 

Michael, overcoming a life-threatening alcohol/drug addiction, instead of projecting his anger and blame on his ex-wife, Brigitte, for abducting his daughters to South America, draws on his spiritual recovery, and suppresses self to focus on their well-being to demonstrate his devotion and love to gain allies to assist in returning them to the United States.

INNER CONFLICT

Michael shares a court order—granting him sole custody and holding Brigitte in contempt of court—with an assistant in the office of Senator Carol Mosely-Braun. From this, he elicits her political power to facilitate the return of his daughters from South America. In his meeting with one US Congressman, Rod Blagojevich, he prioritizes his desire to ensure the safety of his daughters over his worry for their exposure to  dangers in lawless Quito, Ecuador. Understanding that negative emotion will not help him gain allies, Michael does not reveal disdain for Brigitte’s manipulation and vindication towards him on a personal level.

Hollywood detective Anthony Pellicano says “we will talk again when you are ready”, and hangs up from a telephone conversation after Michael shows his frustration with what he perceived as a delayed action in locating and returning his daughters from Quito. Michael had sent Pellicano faxes, chastising him over his lack of communication and movement in his case for his abducted daughters.

 

THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING

Chicago: Michael’s Office

Michael’s academic office, on the fourth floor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s medical complex, is the center of action for his network of allies—as he communicates internationally with the fax machine and telephone. 

His office is in an old, unassuming structure, matching the bland, rundown, neighborhood in the Westside of Chicago. His desk faces a window overlooking the inner campus of the medical school, with deserted, expansive grass courtyards and criss-crossing walkways. The surrounding buildings are drab and tired looking, reflecting a state controlled and funded institution. The greater neighborhood is dangerous, day or night, and adds to the desolate character of the medical campus.

The surface of his desk is cluttered with documents pertaining to his daughters’ abduction. It is an organized chaos. In the only free space, a silverish-chrome framed picture of his two daughters from their trip to Amsterdam is perched.

 

Germany: Karl’s House

Michael travels to Germany, visiting the rustic, naturalistic home of Brigitte’s parents in his initial search. The gravel crunches under Michael’s feet as he approaches her father. The day is sunny, but cold—discouraging any lingering presence. 

Just past the long, curved driveway, the family’s house is made up of natural materials—logs and varying wood sources—reflecting Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy, one that the family had become accustomed to. The property itself was in opposition to the more traditional German homesteads, reminding Michael again that he was not dealing with any average family.

 

Switzerland: Waldorf School

Michael travels to Basel, Switzerland, to visit the Waldorf Schools. The entrance opens to the classical architecture of the gymnasiums. The building has open, high ceilings, and the atmosphere is quiet and orderly.

 

Quito: Pellicano’s hotel room

Michael is escorted by limousine to a luxurious, five star hotel in downtown Quito. The neighborhood surroundings seemed to be in opposition of the hotel itself—people of poverty milling on the streets. Quito was a dangerous, distant third world country. 

 

Upon entering the plush, wood paneled room, Michael is seated on a luxurious hotel bed in the dark. The room is quiet, creating even more suspense for what’s to come. The silhouette of Pellicano moves through the room, reaching to turn on an old video projector. On the wall in front of Michael, an image appears, taking motion as the video is played. The light from the projector is bright and blinding, taking moments for Michael’s eyes to adjust.