6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  The news coverage surrounding the assassination of prominent businessman Harry Winslow did not slow Clyde down in the least. If anything, I think it motivated him. What drove him to continue to murder so rapidly? This was a question I could not talk to Clyde about, I’m sure if he did answer I wouldn’t understand anyway. He worshipped nature and understood it better than anyone else I have ever met, but he relished the role as the hunter equally.

  I could never understand his passion for hunting animals, so there was not a chance I could comprehend his ease in transitioning into a murderer. Even back then when he was only twenty, Clyde told me what he thought I could handle. Typically Clyde would only fill in the details after the killing had already taken place. The exacting detail Clyde placed in each file brought my mind back the forty years to when it had all taken place. Those six consecutive weekends in nineteen eighty six, after returning back from school Clyde would explain the how and when of his previous weeks murder.

  We both knew the simple math and the sum we required, Harry’s murder had placed us closer, quicker than I could have hoped possible. Yet Clyde, who had originally indicated he would commit one murder a week for six weeks to reach our financial goal, carried on as if carrying out the six murders was the primary objective. Not the amount of money we needed to save Fred’s fingers, the completion six planned murders.

  The pace Clyde’s killings would be matched by the surprise increase in our traditional services at the Shackles Funeral Home. Soon enough the piece of shit loan shark would be paid, Fred’s mountain of debt would be under control and we would move forward. Clyde and I had both decided back then that had Fred indebted himself to these types again, we would not be able to prevent his hanging by the toes or what ever the hell they do to dead beats. That ship had sailed for both Clyde and I, this was Fred’s only life boat.

  The file marked simply as number three, a murder Clyde would commit while Fred and I spent the week preparing for the funeral of his second murder victim. By the end of the following week end, there would be a pair of Clyde’s murder victims under the roof of the Shackles Funeral Home. Murder number three would be a near duplicate to the first killing, when Clyde told me about it on the weekend of Harry Winslow’s funeral he claimed it had gone flawlessly. The third victim Clyde had selected from his preferred list of pre arrangements would be an elderly lady by the name of Macy Mae Miller; she resided in an upper end full care private nursing home in the city of Toronto.

  After returning to Toronto on that Sunday evening, Clyde would ride his bicycle down the streets of the city finding his way to the Nursing Home. To Clyde’s surprise the ride was only twenty six minutes from the front door of the townhouse to the gates of the Old Mill Nursing Home. Situated along a small ravine in an older section of the city, the nursing home was situated amongst a series of high end homes.

  The property and surrounding neighborhood was encased in mature maples and birch trees. Wearing a set of green smocks he had brought back from Largo, with his college ID attached to his shirt pocket Clyde slipped into a back service door of the Nursing Home. The time was shortly after nine thirty pm as he followed an errant employee, who had been out for a quick smoke, back in through the door. Clyde would catch the door just before it locked shut behind the returning worker.

  The pre arrangement file listed Macy Mae as residing in room number three two three, Clyde would use the stairs to climb to the third and top floor of the building. The entire hallway was vacant as he stepped out from the stairwell, walking down the wide oak lined hallway, Clyde would read the numbers as he passed each solid oak door. The black numbers reading three twenty three would be halfway down the long corridor; Clyde pressed against the solid polished door handle and slowly pushed the door into the room of Macy Nacy Mae.

  Her eyes were closed and her chest crested to the rhythm of the monitors and pumps that were keeping her alive. Clyde walked carefully towards Macy while she slept; he would spend over six minutes watching her lying there amongst the expensive sheets attached to the life support systems before touching his fingers lightly to the top of her forehead. Clyde waited to see if there was any reaction at all from the roughly breathing and sleeping old woman with his hand now almost resting on her for head, but there would be no movement from the old lady, not even a flinch.

  “Macy Nacy Mae looks like she is ready to do”

  Clyde would write in the file, like some confident know it all grim reaper. Clyde wrote how he would spend over a half hour in the Nursing Home, half of that time in MNM’s room. He would easily slip back out a door without being noticed, before making his way back home to the rental townhouse on the bicycle.

  Clyde would wait a full three days before returning to the Old Mill Nursing Home. Even though Clyde had not returned to the site of number three, Clyde continually reviewed the steps he would take to end the life of MNM. A rule Clyde would live by in the future had already established itself by this the third killing, he would possess no direct identification during any murder.

  For Clyde’s next return to the nursing home, he would replicate a city inspection agency logo he had seen on display at the College Library that he cut from a book. Taking the identification photo back home to the townhouse from school Clyde would laminate it with a small office laminator, and then clipped it to a white smock he had lifted from one of the embalming classes. Clyde would wear the smock on the night he planned to return to the Old Mill Nursing Home.

  The time Clyde chose to return to the Nursing Home would be around ten in the mid-morning hours; Clyde would attend his first class then slip out of school before the last half of a second class. The old Ford pickup was parked in the back school lot, unlike most days Clyde had brought it to school so he could make it back to school as quickly as possible. That morning Clyde had placed the hard hat, vest and fake safety identification behind the seat before driving to school that morning. By eleven sixteen Clyde would be standing in one of the halls of the Old Mill Nursing Home, his lunch followed the second class so the combined time should allow Clyde to make it to the Nursing Home commit the murder and be back to the school before the start of his next class.

  Despite the heavy morning traffic the drive to the Nursing Home was less than twenty three minutes. Three minutes after arriving in the parking lot, Clyde walked calmly through the back receiving doors of the Nursing Home. All supplies required to operate the Nursing Home came through this back loading dock area where Clyde was entering. Using the steel man door located directly beside the large roll up steel door, Clyde entered the back of the Nursing Home. He was wearing the smock, the badge, orange vest and a hard hat. Inside the back door of the Nursing Home Clyde would be greeted by a short portly man planted firmly in a high back swivel chair behind a beige steel desk who barely bothered to raise his head from the newspaper.

  ”Just completing my electrical safety check, already signed in at the front desk”

  The words flowed confidently and swiftly from Clyde as he barely slows his walk while passing by the desk and the receiving clerk. Not that the clerk had any interest in removing himself from his perch unless it was completely necessary, this was clearly not one of those instances in which he would have to wiggle his way up and out of his chair and away from his paper.

  “Sign here” the portly receiver would point to the list on the corner of his desk while his head remained firmly entrenched in the wide open newspaper.

  “There you go”

  Clyde responded after signing the name of Buddy Boy under the name section and the Hydro authority under the company name area. Tipping the clipboard he was holding to signify a good bye to the still not looking or caring receiver before Clyde began flipping through the attached pages as he walked away from the receiving area down the hall of the Nursing Home.

  Clyde stopped briefly at a couple of outlets and switches along the way just to look official; he made all the appropriately timed ticks with a pen on the pages of the clip board as we walked an
d paused making his way to the adjoining hallways. Once at the first set of merging halls Clyde would disappear down the hall which led towards the West wing and the top floor where the room of Mace Mae was located.

  It had taken some doing but Clyde did manage to source the operational manuals for the make and model of the life support system attached to Mace, after failing to find adequate information at both the school and city library Clyde turned directly to the manufacturers. When Clyde made mention that he was calling from the College requesting this information they agreed immediately to fax it over and did so within minutes of talking to the manufacturer’s tech support line on the phone, he had posed as one of the teachers at the College performing training with groups of palliative care nurses. Clyde had studied the faxed manual on the Mendel six thousand model cover to cover several times in the days leading up to tonight’s return to the Nursing Home, he was confident of the units operating systems.

  On that first night in the room of Mace Mae Clyde had made note of the manufacturer and model number of the unit which was pumping life into the frail body of Mace Mae. The plan Clyde had been thinking over for the past few days had him spending no more than thirty seconds in the MNM’s room for two closely timed visits.

  The first visit Clyde would make into the old ladies room would be to recalibrate the settings which would in effect close down the functions to support the artificial respirator and essentially cut off life to MNM whose body was unable to sustain itself without the aid of the Mendel Six Thousand. After leaving the room for six minutes to monitor the halls for incoming attendants all the while presenting himself as an electrical inspector all the while stays close enough to Mace Nacy Mae’s room to reenter the room quickly if he had time or simply disappear back out of the building in a worst case scenario. But after six minutes if there are no signs help was on its way Clyde would slip back into the room and recalibrated the settings back to their original settings for the Mendel six thousand to pump blood and oxygen into the body of the already deceased Mace Mae.

  Those first halls and floors of the Nursing Home at this time in the morning were busier than Clyde had hoped for, but as he made his way to the sixth floor the halls had but a few patients walking about unattended. It appeared as Clyde walked the floors of the Nursing Home during the day light hours and seeing the majority of the residents he would realize that the higher up on the floors you went the worse shape mentally and physically the residents were in.

  Not one nurse or attendant could be seen in the main hall of the sixth floor, Clyde could hear the voices of a pair of clerks or nurses off to the end of the Main hall where it meets a pair of halls from an opposing wing of the building. The hallways of the sixth floor would also remain clear and empty of residents since the majority of them were either bed ridden or locked into their rooms and even strapped into their beds due to the mental state they were in.

  MNM’s room was the second one on the left past the jog in the hallway Clyde was currently on, Clyde now realized that if he stood here while waiting for the six minutes to pass there would be a clear view all the way down the main hall to the nurses’ station. If the nurses were approaching that slight jog in the hall would obscure the oncoming nurse’s view of Clyde entering Macy Mae’s room so he could turn the unit back on. Perhaps the clerks and the nurses work their way from the bottom floors to the top taking care of the residents that are even aware that they are being taken care of Clyde thought as he made his way to MNM’s doorway.

  Before reaching MNM’s door Clyde would remove a pair of latex gloves and slide them on each hand, as he made his way to the door to MNM’s room which was perched partly open. Looking in past the doorway, the opening revealed a good sized room which had been painted in stark white, identical white blinds covered the large window. The bright sunshine almost blinded Clyde as he entered into the room from the dimmer lighting of the Nursery Homes halls.

  Clyde could hear a slight almost chirping sound coming from within the very bright room, as his eyes began to adjust Clyde could begin to make out the outline and features of MNM more clearly. The brightness of the sun and the lack of color in the room made the old lady look as white as the walls. MNM was laying there with her electric bed having her half perched up; a brightly colored picture book was on her lap as she slightly turned towards Clyde nodding her head.

  “Good morning Mamm, sorry to infringe on you I am just completing some safety checks, it won’t take more than a minute.”

  “Oh yes dear straight over on the dresser, your panties are all clean now, my you made some mess.”

  “Yes, of course the panties”

  “Not here by the bed you silly thing, there. Over there”

  “Of course, on the dresser Macy Nacy Mae. I will get them”

  “Macy Nacy? You never call me anything but Mae my love, your teasing me. Are you sure the teacher has gone home for the night?”

  “I believe so Mae, just need to check the boxes here for a moment”

  “NO, NO”

  “Shhh, quiet Mace Mae, you don’t want one of the other teachers to hear, do you?”

  “Teachers?”

  “Maybe”

  “That filthy little Gregory, he had no right touching my breasts like that”

  “Certainly not”

  “Don’t Touch That, Papa don’t let anybody play with the radio controls? When he comes in off the fields, if that dial is moved were all going to get it bad.”

  “Just want to make sure everything is still working on the radio boxes, that’s all”

  “Your touching, you’re a bad little boy aren’t you Malcolm Donahee. I’m not going to the loft with you today, you’re a bad boy.”

  “Only around you Mae, just a couple more adjustments dear”

  “Don’t dear me; you lost my pussy didn’t you?”

  “Mae, I never lost your pussy”

  “You did, you opened the door and my pussy cat is gone, I Hate You. Pa says you’re not worth a pinch of coon shit”

  “Yaa, my Pa says that about me too”

  “That boy is going to get his come upins, I know he will”

  “He already has Mae, he already has. Good day Mae, I’m all finished here.”

  “Not on the lips, you know I don’t like that”

  “What?”

  “Run then; go on run from what you’ve done”

  The statement slightly shocked Clyde as he backed out of the room; he had finished with his adjustments to the life support system at the side of MNM’s bed. The adjustments would stop the life support functions of the machines; he had set the audible alarm to mute. Time

  “Kay then”

  Turning to face MNM before as he exited the room, she was still looking directly at the good looking young man who had commingled with her past so beautifully. MNM raised her hand slightly above the pages of her picture book as if to say goodbye, for the last time.

  Clyde spent more than sixteen minutes pacing in the halls of the third floor before reentering MNM’s room. The main hall on the third floor had remained virtually empty the entire time Clyde waited, the handful of staff that had been going about their day paid zero attention to the Electrical inspector. Reentering MNM’s the room while the hallway was empty, Clyde would push door three twenty three aside to see the same open eyes staring back at him.

  Walking over to the frail and pale old woman the room sat in complete silence, reaching out and touching the side of MNM’s neck Clyde knew instantly that she was dead. Turning his attention to the Mendel six thousand Clyde returned each switch and dial to its proper operating setting and quickly made his way back out to the hall. Pulling the latex gloves off each hand he would stuff them into his lab coat pocket on the way out MNM’s door.

  Clyde buried his face towards the walls and electrical outlets as he rapidly made his way to the staircase of the third floor, not that there would be anyone in the halls of that floor to see him. There would be one nurse or clerk of some sort on t
he main floor, Clyde had passed her on the stairs. She barely raised her head as she steamed up the stairs in the opposite direction to Clyde.

  The stairs would bring Clyde out close to the back receiving doors where he had entered the building earlier, the portly receiving clerk was nowhere to be seen when Clyde rounded the corner of the hall to the receiving area. Clyde would even stop at the desk to sign Buddy Boy the Electrical inspector out for six minutes after twelve. The afternoon traffic was light enough for Clyde to make it back to the school in the Ford pickup before the start of his first afternoon class.

  The Old Mill Nursing Home would call the Shackles Funeral Home that Friday morning before the funeral of Harry Winslow, Fred had answered the call and I would go and pick the body up that afternoon. If I suggested to Clyde that he should go over to the Nursing Home with the pickup and get her since he is already down in the city he probably would have tried it.

  We would not cross paths in Toronto on that Friday afternoon, Clyde was already heading north when I was going south, the details of this murder and of Clyde’s past week would have to wait until later on that Friday night. The service for Macy Mae would take place on the Monday following her death, the attendance to her funeral was light and the family had requested just a single two hour visitation the evening before the funeral, Sunday at seven.

  By the end of the Macy Nacy Mae’s service, the total funerals I was waiting payment for totaled six. This included the pair of large invoices from both Harry Winslow and the old lady Preston services. There had been no “up charges” to the invoices for MNM’s service, primarily because what few family members she left behind, none of them displayed any outward sign of success. Macy Nacy Mae must have been the sole well off aunt, the one with the funny name that provided the bunch of them with the majority of their material possessions. MNM spared little expense on herself in the end, Fred had heard weeks after the funeral that she had been equally generous to her relatives as well.