by JN Lenz
“There is no need to apologize, nice to hear some appreciation of a life’s work, would you like a tour of the gardens?
“Would I? That would be fantastic if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all, Miss McGovern is at church right now anyway. Not to say that she would mind a fresh faced visitor, she loves to show her gardens off. This place is a real passion for her, for me as well I guess.”
“Sorry don’t mean to get you up out of that garden, you look very busy”
“Not at all, just doing a little weeding, it’s a never ending job. Let’s start in the back yard.”
“That would be great, this is very kind of you. The landscaping is just amazing.” Clyde replied before setting down the bicycle before walking over to shake the gardener’s hand. The gardener set down his gloves and small shovel he had been using to shake the out stretched hand from Clyde, after the introductions the gardener named Jose began to lead Clyde past the rows of meticulously manicured gardens and shrubs. The gardener would list the plant and tree names along with each plants flowering time line as they walked the impressive gardens of thirty three Maple Avenue for more than twenty minutes.
“Would you care to see the inside of the manner” the overtly courteous diminutive gardener offered Clyde as the two both returned to the same spot in the back garden in which they had begun the tour of the estate grounds.
“Yes, yes I would love to see the inside if it is no trouble? That would be just fantastic.”
“Certainly, right this way.”
“The way they have combined the Limestone rock and the brick with these massive stained glass windows, the home really is stunning when you are this close to it.”
“Yes the trees have hidden much of its view from the street, it really is quite brilliant. Let’s use the front entrance and the glorious nine foot solid mahogany door. I’ll show you the primary rooms of the main floor first. The place really is quite something.”
“This is such a great surprise today, I often wonder what the inside of these great homes looks like. You were right this place really is brilliant.”
“We are just getting started, follow me”.
The bright Sunday afternoon sun illuminated the great Hall and its accompanying rooms in Technicolor light from the stained glass. The colors resonated off the solid woodwork that covered the floors and corresponded with the solid wood panels which ran half way up each wall throughout the majority of the home.
The high vaulted ceiling was covered in intricate millwork and plaster leaf crown molding flowed thru to all the adjacent rooms. A large stone fireplace highlighted the Grand room to the right of the entrance, deep burgundy and dark green leather furniture filled the room.
Inside the center of the room to the left of the grand stair case sat a very large solid blond Maple dining table and chairs which sat in bright contrast to the surrounding dark hard wood of the floors and walls. The room sat behind the largest and thickest looking lead glass doors Clyde had ever seen, the twelve blond Maple captain’s chairs sat hulking around the long dining table. Room by room floor by floor the diminutive little gardener who appeared even smaller since Jose had removed the large brimmed hat before entering the home.
“This is a picture of Gladys with her father Nelson and her mother Agatha.”
“I see, wow that must be like back in the twenties”
“That’s right, this one here is in nineteen twenty when the house was first constructed and Gladys had just returned from New York.”
“Not a bad looking lady in her day.”
“She was a very attractive lady; I’m not really sure why she never wed”
“It is a little surprising, this one here is that a photograph of her mother?”
“That is correct, so you have seen the main floor let’s take you back around to the front and up the stairs to the second floor.”
“Wonderful”
“Here you will notice the ceilings continue to be much higher than a standard home, a full nine feet even on the second floor. The entire home including this floor is hardwood and is covered of course by these Persian rugs.”
“The place is just spectacular, it really is”
“This is the west corridor which is the shorter of the two; it is shorter because that end of the home is taken up by the master bedroom. Come this way and I will show you. These solid doors are my favorite in the house, come on in. Now this is a bedroom”
“Wow this is massive, how many rooms are there in here?” Clyde asked as he examined the area, to the right and against the back of the home resided a large bed with a canopy , the surrounding furnishings consisting of ornate antique French pieces including a desk and chair with a pair of high back reading chairs and ottomans confronting a dark stone open wood fireplace. Several shelves of hard bound books stretched between the stone of the fireplace and the room’s corner walls. To the left a door in the center of the wall led to a smaller open area with a door on each side with a large window facing the front of the home providing the small room with a southern exposure as the suns light began to sink on the opposite side of the home.
Clyde would memorize every square foot of the Master bedroom area as the gardener continued his narration. Clyde would make a mental map of the homes layout while the gardener continued the tour of the remaining upstairs bedrooms. Unlike the previous murders, this would be Clyde’s sole visit to what would become the next murder scene. The gardener’s detailed tour of the McGovern mansion had been worth a dozen nights watching from the bush. By the time the gardener was saying good bye to Clyde at the front of the house, Clyde had already decided that he would return that night and murder Gladys McGovern. The tour of the grand home had given him the route he would take thru the vast home, both for when he would enter and left the house. Clyde had also identified areas where he could hide so as not to be seen.
Gaining access into the house would be simple; Clyde could use any one of a number of windows on the main level. The windows were still the homes original lead glass wooden windows, with easily manipulated swivel latch locks. While he walked through the house with the gardener Clyde had debated if he should simply unlock one along the way, he decided against it since the existing latched could be opened from outside with a simple flat piece of metal.
The large old Mansion had not a single security alarm or system present that Clyde could see, there would be no motion detectors in any of the rooms or magnetic motion strips lining any of the doors or windows. Thanking the gardener for the tour at the front door Clyde would ask Jose if he worked every Sunday I which the gardener said he could not meet the maid at the house at his regular start time of six in the morning because of a doctor’s appointment.
The gardener had decided to come in for a few hours on Sunday to make up for the missed Monday hours he would go on to tell Clyde before he remounted the bicycle and rode back to the funeral home, it was just after six in the evening.
Six hours after Clyde had walked off the front limestone stairs of the McGovern mansion and bid the gardener Jose a good bye he would be standing back at the base of those same stairs. The great towering old home was set in complete darkness sitting too deep into the wooded estate for the streets lights to have any impact. Like several of the large homes that lined Maple Street at night many of the rooms and hallways had dim night lights which were placed sporadically throughout the home. These small amperage bulbs would cast a dim light through the hallways of these large homes but also left some areas and corners of these homes in complete darkness.
The McGovern Mansion would have several of these dim little lights throughout the home; although they provide a minimum amount of light they still provided Clyde with easy access to the second floor. The entrance into the grand home proved to be as easy as Clyde had predicted it to be, at the last minute he thought to bring a butter knife from the apartment kitchen along which worked brilliantly being thin enough to slide between the window pane and frame to push the latch on
the window open.
After climbing in through a window on the main floor and into the dining room Clyde following the same path he had planned just six hours earlier while in the house with the gardener. Having taken off his shoes outside and placed a pair of Latex gloves on his hands before entering through the dining room window Clyde moved through the hallways and up the stairs in complete silence.
The house was in complete silence other than the sound of the Grandfather clock which sat on the main floor whose arms methodically swing facilitated the rhythm to the house as Clyde made his way through the house. There would be no sign of anyone in the house hallways just as Clyde had anticipated and he soon arrived in the Master bedroom of Gladys, one of the two large doors leading into the bedroom was partially open.
Sliding through the opening of the door and into the foyer of the bedroom suite, Clyde remained close to the right hand side wall as he moved using the large floral arrangement which sat on a round table in the center of the foyer. From the Foyer the bedroom consisted of a sitting area and small library to the right, the oversized bed was in a large open area to the left of the sitting area, finally the dressing area, closets, bathroom and dressing room all resided on the other side of the bedrooms foyer.
Following the wall of the Foyer to the right Clyde would slid into the sitting area and library by aligning himself behind the first set of tall book shelves which define the start of the library. From the Foyer the actual bed cannot be seen, you needed to be in the study or around the corner of the Foyer to see directly into the bedroom. As Clyde Peered out from behind the rows of hard bound novels a clear view into the bedroom showed an empty bed with its silk sheets turned back against the duvet, the sheets still crisp and not yet slept in, turned down in this fashion by the maid no doubt before she leaved for the day.
Surprisingly Gladys’s bedroom had perhaps the sparsest furnishings of the entire house; there was a single light on in the bedroom which was a small multi colored Tiffany stained glass lamp with an old bronze looking base which sat illuminated on the bedside table. Seconds after Clyde had made his way behind the tall bookshelf and had just started to look around the bedroom he heard a soft shuffling sound could be heard above the drone of the distant grandfather clock, the sound was coming from beyond the bedrooms half open door.
Clyde quickly moved across the open area of the foyer, using the large floral arrangement to shield himself from view. He would remain back far enough into the shadows of the Foyer, looking through the flowers and beyond the apartment like bedroom out into the hallway. At the end of the hall which ended at the stair case, Clyde could see Gladys McGovern slowly climbing the last few steps towards the top landing and hallway to her bedroom.
Moving along the back side of the Foyer wall, Clyde continued around to the doorway which led to the bath and dressing room side which was divided by the two closets with a short hallway. Clyde pushed his back flat against the alcove wall which divided the bath and wardrobe area of the master suite. The dark colors of black and dark brown make up that Clyde wore that night along with his back jeans and thin black long sleeve shirt would allow him to disappear into the shadows of the house.
Clyde described his use of makeup that night at the McGovern mansion; he reasoned that he chose the makeup to avoid the possible nausea from the heat of wearing a full face balaclava. Clyde had little tolerance for heat around his head. He preferred cool or cold to hot, in fact he rarely wore a hat even when winter hunting unless it was extremely cold outside. Clyde had left the funeral home apartment for several hours after diner on that Sunday I remember, he must have put he make up on after he left because his face was clean when he left that evening.
For Clyde to have disguised and camouflaged himself for this murder, demonstrated he was giving more thought to not being identified and was taking extra precautions to ensure he did not get spotted. Maybe it was one of his moles giving him a sign, like the one on his neck that would jab Clyde with a quick shot of pain. Clyde always paid attention to what the moles would tell him. The pain from the mole could represent something as simple as the gardener living on site, even though he had indicated to Clyde that was not the case.
Clyde, having had only one afternoon to observe the home would not even have watched Gladys in her home at all. Clyde hid there in the dark shadows, dressed in black jeans with a simple black tight fitting long sleeve collarless shirt, his face covered in a black camouflage paste he had purchased at a surplus army store, invisible in the dark recess of the wall.
Being unable to look directly out of the doorway into the main bedroom, Clyde noticed that the dressing rooms door to the Foyer casts a shadow onto an area of floor directly in front of where he stood motionless. As the shuffling drew closer to the partially opened doorway of the bedroom suite, the sound suddenly stopped. Clyde continued to wait and listen.
After waiting for a few minutes, Clyde decided to peer out from the dressing room wall out into the doorway of the bedroom to search for the whereabouts of Gladys. Bringing his head around the corner Clyde was instantly confronted by the face of the old lady directly in front of Clyde her face not more than six inches from his. Clyde’s eyes shot open the white balls glared against the black drop; Gladys’s sudden appearance inches from Clyde’s face had even surprised him, this he was definitely not expecting.
Looking straight into Clyde’s blackened face Gladys let out a sudden
“AAUUhhh”, as her entire body jerked backwards. As she began to fall backwards both her hands jerked suddenly towards her the center of her chest. Without hesitation or thought, Clyde grabbed both her wrists stopping Gladys from falling directly onto her back. The arms which were locked tightly against her chest kept her body stiff as a board as Clyde slowly lowered Gladys to the floor. The entire way down to the floor her eyes remained fixated on Clyde’s blackened face.
Clyde wrote in the file how her eyes began to well up with tears as she made her way down to the floor, tears of joy he would write.
“I’m not sure why I knew they were tears of joy, I just did.”
Gladys McGovern was dead within minutes of touching the floor; the few short gasps for air had completely ended quickly. Gladys was lying at the foot of the close tree her father for years had used to hang up his suit at the end of each day, her eyes still wide open. Placing both her arms beside Gladys’s almost perfectly aligned body before wiping the last of the tears from the checks of Gladys McGovern. Pushing her eyes lids closed Clyde would turn from Gladys on the floor and follow the same path down to the dining room where he would reach down out the window for the running shoes he had left outside earlier.
Locking the window he had climbed through earlier, Clyde would exit the back kitchen door. The lock on the kitchen was a spring style which could be locked before exiting, which Clyde would do after getting the running shoes back on his feet before stepping outside. There would be a set of towels in a nap sack back with the bicycle Clyde had hidden in a large bush at the side of the McGovern estate; he would use the towels to remove the makeup from his face. Before removing the Latex gloves from his hands as he stood beside his bicycle, Clyde would notice the entire end of the Latex thumb had been torn away. The tear would completely expose his left thumb, meaning his prints may have left back in the large Mansion.
Debating the return back into the mansion to wipe for potential prints, Clyde instead decided against entering for a second time. Hoping on the bicycle he began peddling his was back through town towards the funeral home. The chance of anyone seeing him at close to one in the morning on a Sunday in Largo was very slim but if he did encounter anyone the black makeup would have certainly invoke some questions. Turned out that there would be an idling Police cruiser parked on one of the streets, Clyde would pass just down a couple of blocks.
The lights and the interior of the cruiser sat in complete darkness as the motor idled in the darkness, most likely running to keep the air conditioner operating as it was a hot and humid
night. Clyde would be unable to see the officer inside the cruiser which would not follow after him; he presumed the cop must have been sleeping as Clyde continued on his way back to the funeral home that night.
I would not see Clyde that night having already gone to bed a couple hours earlier, Clyde would be up and gone back down to the city for school by the time I got up the following morning. I would need to wait for the following weekend before Clyde would provide me with the details of the death by way frightening on Gladys McGovern. Clyde would detail later the following week how the last minute murder had all come about, the tour he received from the gardener and his decision to kill Gladys that very night.
The maid would be the first to discover the dead body of Gladys McGovern the following morning. Initially she was thinking Gladys had over slept, the maid did not venture up to the second floor to wake the elderly woman until closer to eleven that morning. She would explain all this to Clyde in the following days at the funeral home that she had arrived at the home at six am as she did each morning along with Jose, but Jose had a doctor’s appointment and would not be to the house until after lunch.
Normally Miss. McGovern would be in the kitchen enjoying her morning coffee at six when we both arrive, but on this particular morning Gladys was not downstairs when the maid arrived. The maid went on to explain to Police and many of the locals that most nights Gladys would walk the halls of the great old home unable to sleep. Gladys had confided in the gardener and the maid that she had seen the ghost of her late father walking the halls of the home.
The maid and gardener had been sworn to secrecy about the ghostly family visits by Gladys for fear the local town’s gossip mill would make her out to be crazy.