|
Mystery
RECONSTRUCTING THE CRIME
By Paul R.
Lloyd
I should have
known Lawson would barge through my door, squeaking the old brass
hinges and tipping his hat to Bertie as he plowed into my office.
The noise from the construction project across the street was
deafening. Until this morning when it stopped at about the same time
the joe finished brewing. Should have known there was a caper in the
project. You don’t stop the wheel loaders and excavators for
anything short of murder on a clear day.
“Whaddya know,
Lawson?” I pulled a pencil from behind my ear and scratched around
my linoleum-topped desk for a piece of paper to write on.
“Notice how
quiet it is across the street?” Lawson poured himself a coffee,
using my MCP mug, the one with the pig chewing on the M.
Here it comes.
I stare Lawson in the eye. “Jilted lover clobbers his ex-girlfriend
with an excavator bucket as she saunters by on her way to work?”
“Did you see
it?
“Kidding,
Lawson. What have you got?”
“You didn’t see
it?” Lawson holds out a hand like I can put my answer into it.
“No, did you?”
I toss the paper back on my desk.
“You’re so
close.”
“Takes a murder
to bring you to my office and I imagine about the same for a
construction company to shut down on a sunny day.”
“Girl got
herself waffled with a bucket, but nobody saw it.” Lawson shakes his
head.
“Bet it was the
excavator operator.”
“Or the wheel
loader operator or the backhoe operator. Bottom line is somebody
squashed her.”
“So it was an
accident. Why does it always have to be a murder?"
“Murder. Three
suspects. All the same motive.”
“Tell me she
was playing all three of them.”
“She was
playing all three of them.”
“And nobody saw
whodunit?”
“Nobody alive.”
“Didn’t the two
operators who didn’t do it see the other operator do it? Seems
somebody would be willing to admit they didn’t do it and point the
finger at his buddy.” I watched Lawson’s face screw up as he tried
to follow me.
Lawson gave his
head another shake like he was chasing the bats out of his belfry.
“All three claim they were pointed in another direction working the
jobsite. Nobody saw nothing. One of the numbskulls had the temerity
to suggest maybe a dozer operator snuck by from across town to get
her. Seems she was a busy lady.”
“You have your
interview notes?”
“As per usual.”
Lawson handed me a mud-splattered sheet of paper.
I took the
paper and found the following two sentences.
The guy
operating the excavator doesn’t like Kurt.
Jamal didn’t
see the murder because he was busy over on the other side of the
worksite backing into the excavator at the time.
I put the muddy
scrap of paper on my desk and picked up my java. “You’ve three
operators so there's three suspects, right Lawson?”
“That’s
correct: Kurt, Jamal and Bill.”
“Your notes
don’t tell me much.”
“So?”
“So you don’t
like to make life easy, do you? Not to worry, Lawson. You owe me a
Black Dingus lunch. The murderer is…”
Whodunit?
Zuk-Lloyd Associates, Inc. – Creative writing and art solutions.
We help
clients increase sales by turning ordinary business information into
extraordinary stories.
Contact:
Paul R. Lloyd
630-393-6516
info@zuklloyd.com
www.zuklloyd.com
Return to Top of
Page |