6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  Harry was much more active at this time of the evening; he could be seen clearly walking past the windows repeatedly. He continually pushed a cart, which looked to be holding a variety of intravenous bags. They looked to be attached to Harry by tubes running under his shirt, perhaps into his stomach area. Clyde viewed Harry thru his binoculars to help establish the range to the house; he would use a distance estimation to align the riffles scope. Wishing that he had his riffle at that very moment, the timing was ideal to blast Harry right there and then. Jack will have it here tonight, Clyde would tell himself, knowing he would be ready to kill Harry the following night.

  What about the glass? How thick is it and could it be bulletproof? Clyde questioned himself as he sat perched high up in the large maple tree. It could be the biggest variable that Clyde could not control, not knowing enough to identify the possibility of it actually being bulletproof. The mansion had an elaborate security system including power security shutters, Clyde was sure of that so why not bullet proof glass? The glass did not appear any different to Clyde; confident that if the glass was bullet proof it would obscure the image from inside the house or take on a ting of color from the thickness, neither appeared to be the case.

  For several hours Clyde would remain in the tree stand until the lights had been lowered in Harry Winston’s room. Thirty minutes after the lights in Harry’s room were dimmed, Clyde scaled back down the tree replacing his portable stand back into the bag, and he had no intensions of testing the limits of the estates security on that night. Returning to the truck Clyde drove around the edge of the city and back to the townhouse, he wanted to ensure he had a full night’s sleep before following night of murder. Checking beneath his bed after entering the townhouse, Clyde removed the riffle and lined it up towards the living room.

  “I’m going to miss you; this will be your last kill.”

  Clyde was talking to his gun, he knew after Thursday night this gun would have to disappear forever, never to be fired again. The gun was the first high powered riffle Clyde had ever bought himself, back then Clyde only owned three guns, the thirty-thirty, and an old twenty two caliber which he had owned from the age of nine. Finally there was the pump action shot gun, the newest of all his guns which he bought a couple of years ago for bird hunting. The thirty-thirty riffle represented numerous trophy bucks Clyde had shot over the years and was also a reminder of the last night his piece of shit old man laid would lay a hand on him.

  Clyde was sixteen at the time and had enough of trying to avoid his father, hiding out in the hidden back trailer, listening to the drunken fool scream out his name. The drunken idiot would flail himself around the yard, clearly audible through the walls of the trailer and the layers of rubbish which surrounded and concealed it. The routine usually followed a night of drinking in the local watering hole, after arriving home Skip would search for Clyde. After discovering the boy’s empty bedroom,

  Skip would become even more enraged as he scoured inside and outside the house for Clyde. Skip wanted nothing more from the boy than to use him as a punching bag. Many nights after the drunken fool succumbed to fact the boy was nowhere to be found, he would take his anger out on the hunting dog. Poor bastard was always attached to that chain on the front yard and had no way to escape the beating. That sound of the dogs yelps, screeching through to the inside of the concealed little trailer, became more than Clyde could handle.

  Finally, one night when the sixteen year old Clyde could not eat Skips shit any longer, he shoved that 30-30 riffle straight into the old man’s face. The whole incident happened right in front of me, as I had been staying over at the trailer that night. Skip confronted us the moment we returned to the property from the bush, Clyde had his riffle with him, which was not out of the norm. It was the first time I heard that tone in Clyde’s voice, as he jammed the riffle below Skip’s chin pushing the drunken prick against one of the old rusting hulk of an old car in the back yard

  “You lay one more hand on me, I’m gonna blow your fucking head off. You got that you drunken piece of shit.”

  I still remember the look on Clyde’s face; he had instantly seized the power from Skip who unlike Clyde’s death stare was one of fear. It was the first time Clyde truly scared the fuck out of me, and clearly it was making Skip shit his pants as well.

  “You’re like the cowboy kid, wholly fuck man I can’t believe you shoved your gun into his neck like that. He is gonna kick the shit out of you for that when you least expect it”

  “If he does I’ll kill the fucker. I really will”

  “Yaa, like you’re gonna kill your old man? The piece of shit isn’t worth spending the rest of your life in jail over, even if you had the balls and were that stupid”

  “Cocksucker has it coming”

  “Maybe, he’s still not worth it”

  “He kicks the shit out of me again and we might just find out”

  “Fuck him anyway; forget it, let’s go get high”

  “I wish I could forget, fuck it is right.”

  I watched Clyde mature in an instant on that night, the point had been made; drunken Skip never again came looking for Clyde in search of a punching bag. Instead Skip was content to take his drunken violence out on his wife, that was when or if he could find the whore, she normally would not return to the house until late the following morning.

  Back at the townhouse, he finished cleaning and loading the riffle, after finishing Clyde returned it to beneath the bed. He instantly fell fast asleep on the top of the bed, once again with all his clothes on.

  The next day played out much like the Tuesday before it, after school Clyde loaded the portable stand and bike into the back of the pickup. In addition to the riffle and tree stand the bag also contained a small shovel. Returning to the same maple tree and securing the tree stand in the same location high up into the canopy, Clyde would spend the better part of three hours scoping the windows of the old man’s room as Harry made his way by them.

  There were several occasions in which Clyde had a clear shot with ample time to both scope Harry in and take the shot. This gave Clyde the confidence his plan would work, provided the glass did not throw him any curve balls. Several times through the course of the night Clyde would raise the riffle, after adjusting the scope precisely for the distance to one of the windows Harry appeared at most frequently.

  Clyde left his location high up on the Maple tree once the lights had gone down in the room of Harry Winston, he would follow a similar route through the forest making his way back to the Ford pickup. Once back at the truck he dropped off the bag with the tree stand and grabbed the shovel from the back box. From here Clyde rode to the location where he had parked the Ford on Monday night, the first night of surveillance on Harry Winslow.

  Walking into the bush another twenty feet from where he had parked the truck on Monday, Clyde dug a hole deep and long enough to conceal the thirty-thirty riffle. After the hole was complete, he rode the bicycle back to the pickup. Tonight instead of taking the long way around the north end of the city, Clyde drove the main roads of the Hunt Club. From there he ventured onto the thorough fares of the city, heading north all the while debated if we would just take that route back home after tomorrow’s murder.

  Checking each street as he passed Clyde would check for the amount of police cruisers plying the streets. Most of the Police vehicles appeared in different locations but remained within the same geographical area as what he had noticed the two prior evenings. From what cruisers he had counted and their proximity to the Harry Winslow estate, Clyde estimated he would have anywhere from twelve to fifteen minutes to make an escape from the back of the estate before the police arrived on the seen at the front gate of the Mansion. The time it would take for security to open the gates for the cops, make their way into the house and get the story another fifteen minutes will have passed, by then Clyde reckoned he would be long gone.

  That same Wednesday, Fred and I had another busy day at the funeral home, cleani
ng the entire place from the pair of funerals the previous day. The cars and the grounds would also require cleaning and manicuring. Fred had managed to get a couple of part timers in to help with the yard work; this allowed the two of us to focus on the cars and the inside of the Funeral Home. I would need to take a drive down to the crematorium as well later in the afternoon to pick up the urns of the two cadavers I had dropped off the day prior.

  The carpets needed cleaning that day every chair on site needed to be folded and stored; I swear the whole town was there for those two funerals yesterday. The timing of the services meant Clyde had not been at the Funeral Home to help for either because of school in the city. Clyde needs to time these murders so we can perform the service on Saturday so Clyde can help us out, I thought to myself as I spent the day cleaning. I tried everything that week to try to keep my mind off what Clyde was about to do down in the city.

  Thursday morning in the rental townhouse and Clyde had everything he required for that night laid out in the spare empty bedroom, all well before he would leave for school. The day at school could not progress fast enough for Clyde, he would write in the file. The curriculum at this early stage of the course was mainly theoretical and class based so it interested Clyde very little. He retained enough information to pass but Clyde certainly was not excelling in theory, the practical hands on embalming which would take place in the second semester would be of far greater interest to Clyde.

  Arriving back at the townhouse at four pm, Clyde quickly ate and packed the bag containing the portable tree stand, the rifle which was fully loaded, the small shovel and a flashlight. Clyde had used a damp cloth first followed by a dry tea towel to remove any prints from all the items in the bag including the riffle that now had its serial number completely filed off. Clyde added a pocket knife, the keys for the Ford and townhouse and a handful of bullets into his black jacket pockets.

  After placing a pair of thin black leather gloves over each hand, Clyde grabbed the clip which held his ID and the truck registration and insurance to be kept in the glove compartment of the truck. A hundred dollars in twenties had been tucked into his sock in case all shit broke loose and he needed to get a taxi or use city transit to make an escape. Clyde threw the hockey bag over his shoulder then grabbed his bike off the rack on the hall wall as he exited the townhouse.

  The bag and bike was placed into the box of the truck before he headed east out of town, Clyde had decided to use the long way around to drive to the Harry Winslow estate. The out and around way of getting to the Hunt Club would take about an hour and twenty six minutes, it was four thirty one Clyde noted when he left the townhouse. Clyde would arrive at the base of Maple he had set up the tree stand for the previous three nights at precisely six minutes after six that evening.

  By the time Clyde would make his way back down to the estate and into the maple tree the skies were black from the heavy cloud cover, soon it would obscure the new moon and shroud the forest in complete darkness. Clyde would only see two vehicles traveling on that back country dirt road where he would pull off into the long grass, with the forest floor being level with the shoulder of the dirt road.

  Finding the same break in the tree line from Monday night, Clyde would park the rusty Ford 150 in the identical location in the bush. Clyde would remove the riffle from the hockey bag and bicycle from the back of the pickup and make his way to the Winston estate property. The one big advantage of riding silently on the bike, instead of bringing the truck closer to the Winslow estate, was that Clyde could hear approaching vehicles long in advance.

  Once again Clyde was able to move into position in the large Maple tree on Harry Winslow’s estate unnoticed. Clyde watched the rear of the Mansion for a few moments, before climbing up the maple and securing himself against the truck of the tree and a large thick limb in the very location he had set the tree stand up for the last three nights. Clyde had decided at the last minute to leave the tree stand back at the townhouse, he had decided at the last minute it could take too much time to remove after the shot or shots.

  Although there were no serial numbers in which to track Clyde’s stand back to him, he did not want to leave anything behind apart from the shell casings, and he would take those as well if he has time to grab them. Climbing up to the same limbs of the large Maple that had held the tree stand in the previous nights, Clyde wedged his knee into a joint of the larger of the two branches.

  Clyde pushed his back against the main trunk of the tree, squatting down against the bent right leg with his left leg extended straight down to a smaller limb. Secured in place, Clyde had the same clear view of the Mansion and of the window in which he planned to shoot Harry Winslow. Once positioned in the tree, Clyde set about checking the sight on the riffle to ensure it was still accurate.

  After sighting in the riffles scope towards Harry Winslow’s bedroom window Clyde would watch as all three members of Harry Winslow’s personal staff sat around a small table within the kitchen eating. The same male guard was at the table accompanied by two females, the maid was also the same woman who had been there on the previous evenings. The second woman who looked to be the nurse was new; a thin blond had replaced the short plump brunette who had tended to Harry Winslow the previous evenings. Harry looked as if he had been already fed since Clyde had yet to see him walking about in the office adjacent to his bedroom.

  Clyde had watched Harry pass by the window two times as he climbed into place in the tree but had not seen him since that time in front of any of the windows. Once Clyde had himself wedged securely into place he raised the riffle to his shoulder and set the sight against his right eye, moving the gun up and to the left Clyde brought the closest window of Harry Winslow’s room into view.

  The last time Clyde had seen Harry pass the window was when he climbed the tree, Harry appeared from the left side of the window to the right. Once he made the return crossing from right to left, the stainless dolly of intravenous bags that he pulled along with his right hand would not be in the way of any bullets. Clyde would not have to wait long for another appearance, within a couple of minutes Harry Winslow began to move slowly across the opening of the window which was covered by the same shear curtain.

  As Clyde swiftly brought the thirty-thirty rifle up the level of his shoulder and pushed the butt of the rifle solidly into his shoulder, he would lower his face down to the top of the gun so his right eye could peer into the lens. Aligning the center of the cross hair of the scope onto the window, Clyde aligned it to the dark shadow of Harry’s head, Clyde instantly squeezed the trigger.

  Immediately after the shot rang out, the shadow of Harry Winslow could be seen slumping down against the pole of the dolly, he just hung there motionless. Clyde quickly threw the bolt lever down and up loading another bullet in the chamber, Clyde quickly managed to release another shot into the head of Harry Winslow while he hung there from the intravenous stand. The second shot dropped the body out of sight of the window. Pulling the riffle down and away from his face he sprang off the large limb, as Clyde quickly scrambled down the tree he watched as the women around the table had jumped to the floor of the kitchen.

  The male guard was now running toward the exit of the staff quarters toward the center of the home and the grand staircase; he was heading in the opposite direction Clyde had anticipated. The guard must have hit the alarm on the way through the doorway, as the outdoor lights blared to life and the loud wail of an alarm filled the silence of the night air. Clyde would get a glimpse of the security shutters as they began to drop in unison across all the windows of the Mansion as he made his way down the large maple tree.

  By the time the lights had come on and the shutters latched shut, Clyde had already reached the ground and was making his way stealthily through the streaking rays of light and the shadows of the trees back to his bicycle. Having slung the riffle over his shoulder he raced the bike through the bush toward the nearest side road. The intense flood lights had been so bright they helped to illum
inate the path back out of the bush; Clyde would not turn to look at the Mansion as picked his way through the trees making his escape.

  The audible blare of the alarm could still be clearly heard even when he had reached the side road. Once he had reached the road Clyde began to head west, soon the sounds of the alarm gave way to the sound of oncoming police cars. Damn they are fast, Clyde yelled to himself as he rounded the first intersection and began to head north, within forty feet of rounding the corner the blue and red lights of a cruiser could be seen in the distance. Riding the bike into the long grass ditch, Clyde threw the bike down diving head first into the long grass at the bottom of the ditch.

  The police cruiser rushed past barely slowing down for the stop sign that was just down the road from where Clyde was lying in the ditch. The car squealed around the corner to the left heading towards the mansion, once again leaving the road side in darkness. Grabbing the handlebar of the bike Clyde pulled it from the ditch and mounted the bike continuing south on the thin paved country road with no gravel shoulders, the sounds of sirens began to disappear as he made his way farther away from the Winslow estate. Clyde would not encounter another vehicle as he made his way to the gravel road and for the entire three kilometer ride on the dirt road to where the hidden pickup truck was parked. Riding up to the back of the truck, Clyde threw the bike into the back of the box.

  Throwing open the truck door, Clyde removed a long duffle bag from behind the bench seat. After removing the sight from the gun which Clyde would set on the passenger side floor of the truck, he quickly wrapped the gun in the plastic contained inside the duffle bag. Zipping the bag containing the plastic wrapped rifle shut, Clyde ran to the back of the truck and grabbed the shovel before sprinting to the hole he had dug the night before. Once at the hole he threw the bag to the bottom of the pit, he did not want to risk traveling with the riffle that night.