Ken Goddard's
Fiction-Writing Web Site
An Interview I did for 'Fatbrain'
Anne Groell:
In addition to being a successful fiction writer, with eight published
novels to his credit, Ken Goddard is the director of the National Fish &
Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, in Ashland, Oregon, a husband, father,
grandfather...and, according to his web site, a less than distinguished
cattle rancher. Which leads me to the first obvious question: why
cattle? Is that something you've always wanted to be, Ken? A cowboy?
Ken Goddard:
Probably...when I was seven or eight years old. Cowboy, policeman,
fireman, airplane pilot, and every other heroic character that showed up
in the comic books. One of the inherent problems of being born a guy, I
suppose: we're easily seduced by our imaginations.
AG:
So you decided to make that imagination a reality?
KG:
Not exactly. My wife and I do live on a small, 20-acre ranch in southern
Oregon, which we bought because of the gorgeous view of the valley, the
surrounding mountains, and the fishpond in the middle of the lower
pasture. And we do graze cows--or steers, I suppose, to be more
precise--on our pasture, mostly because we'd lose our water rights if we
didn't. But most of my real rancher neighbors would collapse into
giggling fits if they ever heard me describe myself as a true rancher.
AG:
Why is that?
KG:
Well, to start with, most of my real rancher neighbors are perfectly
capable of moving their cows--or steers--from 'A' to 'B' on a fairly
routine basis, usually by saddling up their cow horses, rounding up the
herd, and heading them off into the sunset.
AG:
You don't do that?
KG:
I tried. I even went so far as to buy a genuine cow horse and a saddle
from one of the local ranchers. I blame my dear daughter for this act of
insanity. She's the real horse-rider in the family. She managed to
'green-break' her own Arab at the age of thirteen, and saw no reason why
her father couldn't ride a thoroughly trained quarter horse.
AG:
That sounds reasonable to me. So what was the problem?
KG:
Well, to start with, my horse hates cows ... which, in retrospect, is
probably why my rancher buddy sold him to me. 'Buyer-beware' is, as I've
discovered, a basic tenant of cattle ranching. Also, my horse isn't real
fond of having people riding on his back. I discovered this when I
saddled him up for my first roundup, took out after my cows, and found
myself lying on my back in the middle of my pasture when he ran me into
a low tree branch.
AG:
Ouch.
KG:
Right. I might point out here that a real Oregon rancher would have
immediately gotten back on the horse and realigned his thinking in a
very direct and formative manner.
AG:
And you didn't?
KG:
Be serious. This is a horse who knows how to open gates and drag hay
bales out of the loft. I barely know which end of the saddle faces
north. If I'd gotten back on that [deleted] horse, he'd have started
looking around for a lower branch.
AG:
This really doesn't sound like a typical Ken Goddard novel scenario.
KG:
I think it's fair to say that not a single one of my fictional
characters would have put up with a horse like that for five seconds.
Instant Alpo. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't last more than five
seconds as one of my own fictional characters...and most of that time
would probably be spent running. So I suppose it all balances out in one
way or another.
AG:
So what was your solution to the cattle problem?
KG:
A golf cart.
AG:
You round up cattle with a golf cart?
KG:
Yep. I use the cart to put stacks of hay along the path between where
the cows are at and where I want them to go. Whatever works, as us
rancher-types like to say. [grin]. Which is very analogous to the way I
write, now that I think about it: set some enticing stepping stones in
place, let the story find its own path...and then adapt as you go. I
guess detailed outlines and round-ups on horseback really aren't my
forte.
AG:
[laughs]. But speaking of fortes, let's talk for a moment about your law
enforcement career, and how that has influenced your writing. Was
becoming a policeman another one of those childhood fantasies?
KG:
No, I really got into law enforcement as the result of a judo accident
at the University of California, Riverside, where I was just about to
graduate with a B.S. degree in biochemistry. I tried to throw a 300-lb
opponent over my shoulder, which turned out to be a bad idea as far as
my shoulder and knees were concerned. The instructor was a Riverside
County Sheriff's sergeant. He took me from the emergency room to meet
the Sheriff. Three weeks later, I graduated, got married, drove over to
the Sheriff's Office, raised my left hand...and all of a sudden I'm a
deputy sheriff/criminalist.
AG:
By 'criminalist', do you mean forensic scientist?
KG:
Right. By day, I learned forensic science techniques: how to analyze
blood, urine, drugs, work the crime scenes, all that lovely stuff. By
night, I was out on the streets learning how to function as a law
enforcement officer.
AG:
Which did you like best?
KG:
The night work. No question about it. I'd come home at two or three in
the morning absolutely wired with adrenaline, and my poor wife--who was
trying to finish her teacher's credential--had to put up with listening
to my stories until I was finally able to get to sleep.
AG:
It sounds like it was difficult to do both.
KG:
Impossible, actually. Ultimately I had to decide whether I wanted to be
a forensic scientist or a patrol officer. The truth is, what I really
wanted to be was a homicide sergeant, but that would have meant setting
aside all of my scientific education and training, which seemed like a
real waste. Ultimately, I found myself more and more involved with crime
scene investigations. The best of both worlds, in a sense: using logic
and science to reconstruct the events of a crime.
AG:
So you liked working the crime scenes?
KG:
The work was fascinating, exhausting...and ultimately depressing. If you
did your job properly, and really focused on reading the evidence and
the scene itself, you could--in a figurative sense--get to a point where
you found yourself 'stepping into the skins' of the suspects and the
victims. The blood splattered across the wall in this direction, which
means she must have done this...and he must have done that...which meant
she...so on and so on.
AG:
That must have helped with your writing, being able to get into both a
suspect's and victim's head like that. How much of your books are
influenced by real life events, and how much is simply a product of
knowing how the average crime scene works?
KG:
Well, in First Evidence and Outer Perimeter, I certainly make use of
'real-life' situations and techniques in describing the activities of my
crime scene investigator hero, but I never write about a real crime or a
real suspect. I always make them up. However, I do make use of real CSI
situations that had a jarring effect on my brain, like the time I had to
duct-tape my wrists, pants legs and shirt collar closed so I could look
for a body in the crawl space of an old house without the spiders
crawling down my neck.
AG:
That sounds horrible.
KG:
It was...and I still have occasional nightmares about the huge spider
that crawled up my leg. But the experience provided me with some useful
perspective on fear...which is always helpful for the kind of stories
and characters I write about. Oh, yeah, and speaking of characters, I
almost never write about real people, but I did make an exception in the
case of my good buddy Bob Dawson...who really is an ex-cop, helicopter
pilot, skilled sketch and water-color artist, firearms instructor,
deadly combat pistol shot, and a current federal agent. I suppose it
took a book on extraterrestrial evidence to make him sound real. [smile]
AG:
Is that what caused you to shift into wildlife forensics: your fear of
big spiders?
KG:
It's probably as good an answer as any...but the truth is, I got offered
the job (as director of the National Fish & Wildlife Forensics
Laboratory) because I was a writer. The Fish & Wildlife Service was
looking for someone who could write evidence handling and CSI procedures
for their relative new special agent force, and I'd previously written a
text on crime scene investigation.
AG:
So all those late night, early morning hours working gory crime scenes
finally paid off.
KG:
Absolutely...for my day-time job as well as my writing.
AG:
Okay, I simply can't resist asking. What is the most bizarre case you
have ever been involved in?
KG:
Well, I worked several of the Randy Kraft bodies when I ran the crime
lab in Huntington Beach, CA (Kraft was convicted for the brutal slayings
of several young gay males in the Southern California area, back in the
seventies and early eighties) but I don't think you really want to hear
about any of the morbid details...and I'd just as soon forget about them
myself. I did, however, get to work a case involving several hundred
headless bodies that washed ashore along the Alaska coastline.
AG:
That was less morbid than the Kraft killings?
KG:
Well, probably not as far as the walrus victims were concerned. [smile].
But it turned out to be a fairly exciting crime scene. We ended up
crashing an airplane, sinking a jeep into an arctic stream, and having
to wade naked across another arctic stream to get to our survival gear.
AG:
So this is your idea of getting emotionally involved in your work?
KG:
Exactly. And, in fact, I do like to write about things that get me
emotionally involved...things that either get me mad or scared.
AG:
Like horses, for example.
KG:
No, I'm only leery of horses. But I'm not real keen on large spiders in
crawl spaces of creepy homes. And I'm definitely afraid of sharks.
AG:
Another victim of the Jaws movie?
KG:
No, I used to bodysurf as a kid, off La Jolla. One late afternoon, just
before sunset, I was floating out beyond the breakers, by myself,
probably in about twelve to fifteen feet of water, waiting for one last
good wave before I went in. The water was glassy green, almost
iridescent, and the sky was turning a bright reddish-orange. One of
those memorably beautiful sunsets. I saw a big swell forming out in the
distance...and then suddenly felt the pressure wave of something big
gliding past somewhere beneath my feet.
AG:
What was it?
KG:
I have no idea. In fact, in retrospect, I don't think I ever want to
know. At the time, I remember my mind went numb while envisioning a
large set of white teeth. I balled up, tucking my legs into my arms,
trying to present as small a target as possible...and tried to see what
it was, but the water was too dark. Typical Pacific Ocean water...you
could only see a few feet beyond your nose at best.
AG:
Then what happened?
KG:
All of a sudden the wave was there...the big swell starting to surge
upwards...and I caught it, out-swam it, and kept on swimming frantically
until my hands and feet dug into the sand. I seem to recall lying there
on the beach for several minutes, laughing and shaking, until I could
stand up.
AG:
Did you ever go back in?
KG:
Not there. Like I said, I'm nowhere near as heroic as my fictional
characters. And besides, fear of the unknown is one of the classic human
motivators. I use it a lot in my writing...and especially in my last two
books, First Evidence and Outer Perimeter. Nothing quite like the
unnerving impact of sensing something moving around in the darkness that
you can't really see or hear. That, by the way, is the big difference
between being out on patrol by yourself during the day, and being out by
yourself on the graveyard shift...especially when you get one of those
'suspicious circumstances' calls.
AG:
I can imagine! Now, so far you've written three police novels, Balefire,
The Alchemist and Cheater, that dealt with terrorism, designer drugs,
and a freak CIA-trained burglar; three wildlife law enforcement novels,
Prey, Wildfire and Double Blind; and two...how would you describe your
last two novels, First Evidence and most recently, Outer Perimeter?
KG:
Hummm. How about: what happens when a very stubborn and very skeptical
crime scene investigator trips across evidence at a bizarre crime scene
that he really can't explain?
AG:
As in extraterrestrial evidence?
KG:
[enigmatic smile]. That's the question Detective Sergeant Colin Cellars
has to resolve.
AG:
Which brings me to another point. To me, one of the most intriguing
things about your background is that you are the director of the very
lab to which alien-or not-human-evidence would be brought were it to be
found. Has anyone ever tried to get you involved in examining
potentially extra terrestrial phenomena?
KG:
There have been several efforts in that regard, but not by a law
enforcement agency...and we're restricted to working evidence from
official investigations. We have, however, agreed to look at some
Sasquatch evidence, and I've been asked by a couple of fish and game
agencies if we'd respond to a cattle mutilation case.
AG:
So what can you tell us about Sasquatch?
KG:
Well, based on the evidence we've seen to date, he seems to have
polyester fur, which we think is a marvelous adaptation to the
environment. [grin].
AG:
So no extraterrestrial evidence so far?
KG:
Not yet. We do, however, remain optimistic and open-minded. After all,
it is a pretty big Universe out there...and you never know what might
pop up out of the darkness some day.
AG:
As your crime scene investigator, Collin Cellars, in First Evidence and
Outer Perimeter realizes, to his dismay and disbelief.
KG:
Yeah, spooky shadows are definitely one of his more serious on-going
problems...among many other things. Actually, I kinda feel sorry for the
poor fellow. He and Dawson really deserve a more sympathetic and kindly
author.
AG:
Do I get the sense your Detective Sergeant Colin Cellars would really
like to be a homicide sergeant, but that he's really too much of a
scientist to be good at that sort of thing?
KG:
[laughs]. Colin does tend to look down at the evidence a lot when he
really ought to be looking up and around.
AG:
Did anybody ever tell you the same thing?
KG:
[nods]. My training sergeant. Many times ... and very emphatically.
AG:
So, what comes next in your writing career?
KG:
A third book in the First Evidence and Outer Perimeter series. I'm
working on that right now. After that, who knows? Maybe I'll try
actually learning to ride my horse. Bound to be a story there somewhere.