CLANK: A Book of Madness (Psychological Satire Novel) Unsettled Office Worker Loses the Last Screw (12 page)

However, the rapacious wench
did not receive her coveted life insurance. No, no. Grinding glass may have
worked years ago, sister. But in today’s world, detectives and coroners are on
to such rudimentary, clichéd tricks. They discovered the real cause of death which
led to an investigation and the woman’s eventual arrest for murdering her
husband. An amateur mistake. Anyone that stupid deserves to be caught.

One can learn as much from
botched, imperfect crimes as they can from perfect crimes. I don’t have time to
make all the mistakes myself so I’ll learn from those who have already made
them -- those who have perpetrated these infantile schemes, and paid a heavy
price for their lesson at that. My lesson. I thank you from the bottom of my
heart. Your efforts make all of this possible.

21

I called in sick to work
today. Well, actually I phoned in at the exact time I knew the office would be
vacant. This meant not having to deal with that insufferable, redoubtable fiend
in the form of Wilmer Cromwell. A few coughs and sniffs on the answering
machine should have been sufficient. My acting seems to be improving each time
another piece of the plot falls into place. And there’s a good chance it’s
going to be one of those 24 hour flues when Wilmer inquires about it tomorrow.
Staying home and researching my latest
project
is a much more valuable
allocation of my limited time. The house looks like a tornado just whipped
through a criminologist’s library. Dozens of books lay scattered and spread
across the living room floor. You can almost spot a walkway in some sections.
Crime stories from both fiction and non-fiction cases. I’m culling over this
vast compendium for inspiration. My method of killing Wilmer Cromwell is still
unknown to me. I have, however, ruled out quite a few tactics. In the spirit of
prudence, basically anything physical has been rejected. With my weak frame
it’s far too risky to attempt to overpower Wilmer, or even accidentally find
myself in a struggle of brawns. He’s gulped down enough muscle shakes in the
last month alone to take on a full grown bull, and probably win.

Weapons, however, are still an
option. Perhaps a gun or knife. Though a blade does run the chance of breaking
into a physical confrontation. Lord knows I’d probably lunge from the shadows,
slip on the ground and impale myself with the steel. Either that or Wilmer’d
see me flailing about and say “Back to work, Jiggy.” I’d much prefer making a
quick and effortless kill. A silenced pistol? Maybe… Ah drat! Then there would
be the irksome task of acquiring a gun -- in such a manner that it couldn’t be
traced back to me. A hitman? The same problem and perhaps even a bit riskier.
I’ve read too many stories of vindictive wives being caught due to blundering
hitmen. Hearing all the tales, you’d suspect most “hitmen” are in fact under
cover police. Unless you find that rare hobo on the street who used to
moonlight as an assassin. A bottle of whiskey and he’d take out anyone in the
world for you. The best part being, the sot would be so drunk during all the
communications there’d be no way for him to identify you. But then again…
thinking back to my last incidents with the homeless, I don’t exactly have a
high standing in their inner circles.

Yet, how sweet it would be to
find myself ensconced in a spacious closet inside Wilmer’s house. He’d return
home late at night and enter without a care in the world. I’d wait in the
shadows watching him through the tiny slats of the door. My hand would raise
the gun to head level, waiting for him to enter the bedroom.

Wilmer walked in and tossed
his coat off onto the corner chair. At the very moment he turned to the dresser
located near the head of his bed, I sprang from the closet and observed him
recoil in fear.

“
Jexington?” he says.

I grit my teeth, slowly
applying pressure to the trigger.

“
My name is—“ BANG! Wilmer
drops like a sack of spuds as the bullet breaches his skull, leaving bone
fragments against the back wall. It turns out he didn’t have any brains after
all.

Yes, yes, that would be a
highly satisfying scenario, although it does pose many problems. Botherations
I’d rather not deal with. Gunplay is so messy and disorderly. Even a single
shot can leave quite a bloody turmoil behind. Though I do like the less
traceable aspects of it. Heck, I can admit it! The rewarding sight of Wilmer’s
lifeless body crumpling to the floor – wearing a bewildered, shocked expression
as he goes down.

Now take poison for instance.
It’s very identifiable in today’s world. The amount of crime scene
investigation stories chronicling its usage is mindboggling. They’ve got
technology today that leaves one speechless. These new advances make it that
much harder to commit a crime, but on the flipside, malicious technology has
been advancing as well. It all depends which side happens to be at the
forefront of trickery during the particular moment in time of your crime. As an
example, think back to the Old Western days. A man could be shot dead and his
murderer never found. Today, they’d simply perform a few ballistic tests on the
main suspect’s weapon and most likely find the culprit with little effort.

Crimes must be more
sophisticated these days. That doesn’t mean they must be intricate, no, not at
all. It simply means a bit of thought is required, some planning. The majority
of murders are not premeditated. They’re hot-blooded crimes perpetrated by
capricious idiots. Your neighbor makes you angry by playing his music too loud.
You ask him to turn it down. He tells you to screw off. Okay, pal. I’ll get my
glock and put six rounds center mass. These are typical crimes. The
transgression I’m after isn’t talked about much because the wrongdoer is hardly
ever found. Intelligence is a dangerous thing.

Then there are these other
multitudinous, pesky questions to answer. Do I wish to frame someone else? Get
myself a fall guy like all those hardboiled crime stories? Or shall I make it
look like a random, unsolvable act? Typically, your standard frame job requires
a bit more planning and a heck of a lot more time! But… is hatching the perfect
frame-up worth the effort? To somehow pin it on the repulsive Storton or
conniving Percy? Maybe the paranoid Ellington Fairfield? Or the cold seductress
Natasha? The idea strikes me as something beyond ordinary, a magical notion,
fulfilling all those reveries which have occupied my mind for endless years.

G-D-it, though! I’m under such
constraints! The deadline (hehe) is so near, approaching so rapidly. There’s no
confidence in this plot. I’m not ready… am I? Who knows…Perhaps, I could leave
just enough of a trail to cast suspicion on some known sleazebag, a real grimy,
dirty, underhanded scummy type -- without putting the final nail in their
coffin. A few well placed clues. Point those lazy flatfoots in the direction of
another; let him go sniffing someone else’s rump – removing myself from the
spotlight. But let’s be honest, I can’t make the scent too weak. These coppers
aren’t that bright. I need the hint to be quite evident, yet not appear
contrived…

And still… the murderous
method seems to persist in eluding my mind. Hidden just below the surface it
is, I know it! This ol’ peabrain of mine is cudgeling itself silly! Here I am,
sitting in a mound of books, pouring over materials, searching and searching
for an answer that is lurking somewhere deep within them. I just know it is! Look
hard, boy. Use those years of extensive learning… Curses! Why is plotting the
perfect murder such a difficult task? What a needlessly complicated mess. You
know, I’ve spent my entire life compulsively reading crime novels and studying
killings, yet when it is time to plan my own, I draw a blank. Disgraceful… I’m
completely useless. A hopeless situation. What can I possibly do? There isn’t a
way for me to commit this crime, is there? I’ve been nothing but a fool. A G-D
fool! And now it occurs to me, I might as well stoically accept my fate and
allow Wilmer to kill me with his infernal clanking. I’m a failure.

All of these stories I
previously read —

Wait…
Previous!
That’s
it!

22

Let me tell you what a fool
Wilmer is. I’ll do it in the way all those writer types say to convey stories.
I’ll illustrate his foolishness through showing. And it is simply this:
Cromwell gave me a key to the office awhile back. Which is lucky for me…
because here I stand, inside the building with not a soul around, as the clock reads
3:30 am. I’m here at the office. Not normally a time for employees to be
assiduously working, now is it? Then again I’m not performing typical business
duties. I’m going through Wilmer’s old case files. His
previous
cases.
You see, yesterday an idea was rattled lose in my head when the word
previous
came stumbling out from my mouth. It struck me like a punch in the groin. A
real awakening.

I asked myself: Why would
anyone want to kill Wilmer? For a botched case, of course! He’s a snobby lawyer
with fancy duds. The real dilemma now is in finding a suitable suspect for the
frame-job. However, more pressingly, I need to unlock these past files first.
At last, I am alone again with Cromwell’s computer. That secretive machine he
goes to such lengths to hide. It’s booting up nice and fast. The bright screen
flashes on… PASSWORD required! Drat! Another folly of mine. I cannot keep
overlooking the small points. But in truth I’m glad this happened. Now I can be
reminded to focus and prepare. Leave nothing to chance! And simply because I’ve
come this far, I make a few attempts at cracking the code. Generic, stupid
things I figure Wilmer might use.
Muscles. Muscle Shakes. Posing. Mirror
posing.
Nothing. Oh well…

No need to worry. And here,
you might begin to grow jealous of just how lucky I am! For Cromwell keeps a
filing cabinet in the back. A place where he stores every case file of his in
hard, paper copy. I guess he doesn’t quite trust the cyberspace security. This
piece of furniture is an easy entry. The drawers aren’t even locked. Now, let’s
get down to business…

Which moronic dunderhead would
want to exact revenge on Mr. Cromwell for losing their case? Mrs. Teetums? She
lost over 150k in what was supposed to be a simple settlement with her
ex-husband. Wilmer overlooked a tiny fact and blundered. Mrs. Teetums was out
150k, her estate, and nearly all of their property. She had been a somewhat
wealthy woman and might consider hiring a hitman. I remember Teetums well. The
woman had the personality of a battleaxe, which made it come as no surprise to
discover she’d been divorced five times.

Or how about Ralph Higgins?
The squirrely faced computer-man with exceedingly thick glasses? One would
think food poisoning from ingesting a well-known cereal brand to be an open and
shut case. They put bad stuff in the food, you ate it, you sue, you win… Nope.
Leave it to dimwitted Wilmer to bungle yet again and mislabel a few bags of
evidence, resulting in the verdict of not guilty. Higgins had been robbed of
what surely would have proved to be a very lucrative settlement. Some even
suggested Wilmer took a pay off by the company to botch the case. Mr. Ralph
Higgins was a man who could be described as believing in such a notion. And
wouldn’t that be a perfect motive for a revenge kill? I can only hope Higgins
has fallen on hard times and become a desperate fellow. You never know what
animals will do when cornered.

I pull open another folder and
read the contents. What do we have here? Mr. Roland Drake the used car
salesman. Sounds quite appealing. The oleaginous slimeball stereotype. A
regular upstanding citizen you can bet… Another Percy Sullivan knockoff. It
would appear Drake sold a few lemons to several dreadfully peeved consumers.
Although, technically he had done nothing illegal. I’m unsure of the legal
term, but some states have laws against selling “less than quality goods,”
we’ll say. This law is put in place to protect ignorant buyers. Cousin Cletus
buys a piece of garbage, finds out it doesn’t run past the two mile mark. He
comes stumbling back to refund his cash. God bless America.

Evidently ol’ Mr. Drake was
known to pawn off quite a few of these lemons. Wilmer lost the case by
neglecting to research whether our state enforced this law or not. And it did.
A painfully rudimentary, stupid mistake. Dumbo-Wilmer built the case around an
entirely asinine premise. As expected, it was thoroughly trounced by the
prosecutor within a matter of minutes. A savage beating. Perhaps he couldn’t
have won the case in any event. However, he exhibited such a pitiful
performance that it most assuredly left Mr. Drake infuriated and vengeful (if
his red cheeks and puffing lungs were to be of any indication) – as he was
fined an exorbitant amount of money.

Statistically, in truth,
Wilmer is a decent lawyer. There aren’t a whole lot of cases for me to go on.
But remember, these people aren’t actually going to murder Wilmer.
I am.
All I must do is leave a few clues behind to insinuate that one of them
might
have been involved in the killing. I may even look into cases that he’s won.
Find someone on the losing end of things who would be very bitter. On second
thought… that’s not a half bad idea. Who
would
hold a grudge against
Cromwell for losing
to the ol’ boy? Yeah, that’s good… A bitter victim
of Wilmer’s superior, unscrupulous skill set. Maybe one of his tag team matches
with Percy. I don’t much care who it is, myself. They will serve merely as
pawns. Stepping stones allowing for the greater good to be visited upon
Cromwell. So then… since it matters not which unsavory character I select…
Truthfully, it follows suit that all my plan depends on is finding the easiest
fall guy – which goon appears most susceptible to committing this heinous
murder? The most likely candidate… yes, that’s good. I like that.
Candidate.
Let’s make it official!

I’ve essentially ruled out
framing Ellington. Even though he has a desultory mind and could very easily be
depicted as delusional, verging on insane, I don’t wish to risk the attention
finding its way back to my doorstep! Idiots like that are always prone to
babbling. He might talk, ramble as it were, and mention my name. Or whatever
he’s calling me that particular day. Not a favorable outcome. I mustn’t put
myself in such peril, not even for a moment. I am the dutiful, reticent
employee who is deeply upset by the loss of his dear beloved mentor, friend,
and former employer, Mr. Wilmer Cromwell. Ah, that’s rich. I can’t help but
chuckle.

The same goes for Todd
Storton. He’d have even less motive to kill Cromwell than me. Though, neither
of them is free of my treachery just yet. They’ll still play a vital role in
this deed. Every mastermind needs a few henchmen to do his bidding. It’s in the
rulebook.