6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  Next, Clyde activated the winch; this pushed the cart holding the container out into the bay. Once the pod was freely floating in the bay, he used his fishing boat to pull the floating container to a location, pre-determined on Clyde’s GPS. The location was well off shore and past the shelf of limestone. It was here that the depth of the water fell from sixty feet to over three hundred and sixty feet.

  The compressed oxygen on board would give Junior Sodo enough air to survive for six days, unless he began panicking, this would use more air. On day six a timed small explosive would allow water to begin slowly leaking into the tank.

  Even at the age of sixty, Clyde was still such a bastard.

  The underwater adventure was abandoned in the end, why he would not specify.

  Why he wrote of a failed plan was also not elaborated upon.

  At that age he had not lost his ability to walk silently, in the bush or on the street

  The sweat shop king, abducted by way of chloroform, dispensed from a cloth jammed into the face of Junior Sodo. A cloth washed at one of his Chinese laundries. This plan of murder for junior Sodo would also require a one hundred and sixty minute drive north to Clyde’s waterfront property on Georgian Bay, Clyde would strap the unconscious man to a two wheeled hand cart and push him quickly across the lot to his waiting van and after loading him onto the floor of the van Clyde would inject enough diluvium to keep him unconscious for another dozen hours.

  There would not be a sound from Junior Sodo that entire drive to the shores of Georgian Bay, not even during the time it would take to roll the body down to the dock, and into the back of the small float plane. The plane was rental that Clyde had picked up a day prior to his abduction of junior Sodo; Clyde had been a pilot for some thirty years but only flown a handful of times in a float plane.

  The following morning just as the sun began to rise on the eastern horizon of Georgian Bay Clyde would be making his way across the glass smooth old waters of the Bay reading the plane for flight. Junior Sodo would be conscious by the time Clyde had made it down to the plane that morning; he had left the bound man in the back of the plane through the entire night.

  As Clyde carried his large hot mug of coffee in his right hand as he walked down from the cottage to the long shoreline dock which secured the small plane from floating across the lake. Yanking the thin aluminum door open Clyde would be greeted by the wide open eyes of Junior Sodo, Clyde would write how the man squirmed and made sounds through his gagged mouth like that of a little frightened school girl. Not willing to take the risk of a freaking out Sodo high up above the dense forests of Northern Ontario Clyde would inject Junior Sodo as the man looked on in horror as Clyde slammed the needle into the side of the struggling sweat shop king.

  Even with his arms and legs completely bound, Jr. Sodo had managed to flail and squirm his body around the back of the plane. Setting the controls on auto pilot, Clyde managed to depress the plunger of chemicals from the syringe into junior Sodo’s thigh. The heavy horse tranquilizer immediately ended junior Sodo’s sudden movements, his head dropped with a thud on the aluminum floor of the plane. As his eyes closed his entire body went limp on the floor. Pulling a tarp from the rear of the plane, Clyde completely strapped and covered junior Sodo to the rear storage area of the small two seat float plane. Once secured Clyde returned to the cockpit he powered the plane towards the rising sun over Georgian Bay.

  After gaining maximum altitude, Clyde pointed the small plane directly north, using two small lakes to refuel as he hop scotched up to his destination, high above the 56th parallel. It would be here in the remote Northern Ontario wilderness, hundreds of miles from the nearest railway or road that Clyde would land the small Cessna. There were thousands of unnamed lakes in this area, six hundred kilometers inland from Moose Factory.

  It would be here, after gentling running the float plane to the edge of the shore that Clyde would drag the still unconscious junior Sodo exactly twenty six feet into the bush. After pulling the pants and shirt from the body of junior Sodo Clyde would strap him securely to a large maple tree, leaving the gag firmly placed in the sweat shop kings mouth.

  The black flies clung in thick layers on the mesh bug hat on Clyde’s head, he was strapping the still motionless body of junior Sodo to the large maple tree, this time of year the countless pockets of water across the north produced billions of blood thirsty insects. This would be where Jr. Sodo would spend the last days of his life, as defenseless as the workers he abused worse than animals in factory floors across the world.

  Clyde felt who better than nature and the earth to exact its revenge on the exposed naked body of Junior Sodo. The remote location would be as effective as his hidden crematorium in simply making Junior Sodo, disappear.

  Returning to the lake and the plane to retrieve a bucket from the back of the plane, Clyde filled it with the ice cold water before throwing it onto the face of Junior Sodo. With the horse tranquilizer nearly worn off the sudden temperature change and the water was enough to wake junior Sodo into consciousness.

  There was nothing in particular Clyde needed to say to junior Sodo he just wanted to ensure the man was awake before Clyde would make his way back to the float plane and powered off the lake and into the clear skies. The thought of removing the tight fitting gag around Sodo’s mouth crossed Clyde’s mind, he wrote.

  “Maybe let the helpless fuck scream into the barrens”

  In the end he decided against it, just on case someone decided to fly in or portage into the lake for some Pickerel. After standing just in front of Jr. Sodo, watching him regain consciousness and some form of mental clarity. Jr. Sodo pulled on his arms in an effort to free himself, a series of loud moans and groans followed as he attempted to yell through the gag in his mouth. The thick fog of black flies that swirled in front of the exterior of Clyde’s bug suit now covered the face and body of junior Sodo, his chubby stark white skin had become rapidly covered with millions of the tiny blood thirsty insects.

  Soon the multitude of freshly hatched insects would make their way to the body of Junior Sodo, each one crawling and residing on his body taking their share of the food source. The insects would be followed by various wildlife Wolves, Bears and birds that would eventually clean the flesh from Junior Sodo’s bones.

  His slow agenizing death would be spent with him being as helpless as the thousands of sweat shop employees he pay rolled in near slavery like conditions and compensation for decades.

  Nature would exact its own revenge, Clyde repeated in a brief description on his departure from the lake that day. He had simply turned and walked away from Jr. Sodo that afternoon on the unnamed lake from the deep in the Boreal Forest of Northern Ontario. Making his way back to the plane, Clyde looked out on the calm lake and clear skies.

  “What a beautiful day for a fly” he said aloud before boarding the Cessna.

  There would be a stop in Timmins to refuel the little Cessna Clyde on his flight south, before flying directly to an airstrip near Huntsville to return the float plane.

  The National papers and all news media would pick the story of the disappearance of the prominent business mogul the next day. Within a couple of days the Police began to speculate publicly that the disappearance of junior Sodo Morrow may have been a kidnapping. They held an expectation that a ransom may be requested at any time. Six days after the disappearance of Junior Sodo, the Police released a grainy image from a parking lot surveillance camera. The images showed a shadowy figure approaching Sodo from behind, after a brief struggle junior Sodo was lying motionless on the asphalt.

  The attacker briefly disappeared from the view of the camera before returning with a two wheeled hand cart, the cart was used to strap junior Sodo to before pushing him out of the view of the camera. The van Clyde would load Sodo into remained completely out of the view of the surveillance camera and would also not be present in the second outside camera on the opposite side of the building. The Polices had released the surveillance camera im
ages in hopes anyone may have more information on the attacked, even with the available modern facial recognition software the ball cap on Clyde’s head and the poor lighting of the parking lot prevented the computer from generating an accurate composite sketch of Clyde’s face.

  The attention Clyde was garnering this year in the media from his most recent killing did not appear to be troubling him in any way he would barely make mention of the ongoing case in junior Sodo’s file, I guess he knew that if the Police had any idea that Clyde was the killer he would have been arrested by now. Maybe that is why Clyde had never explained these ongoing murders to me knowing if he was to be caught the only person he could fault was himself.

  Father Max Kaposi had been a priest in this parish in Toronto for over twenty years, he had performed a number of the sermons for the services held in Funeral homes owned by Clyde and I. Having grown up on these very streets he was well known by the congregation in this mainly Italian neighborhood. The decision to become a priest in the Catholic Church arose less from his strong religious beliefs than his desire to hold an occupation free from heavy manual labor.

  With generations of brick masons in Max’s blood, he had no illusions of following in the family’s hard working past. Watching as the bodies of many of his ancestors crumbled before him, as they struggled in their old age after years of hard physical labour. Max’s mother Maria had read the bible to him continuously at a young age; they both attended mass several times weekly.

  He would become the youngest altar boy in the parish’s history, this despite the personal troubles he often encountered in primary school. When the opportunity presented itself in the form of an inquiring visiting priest, Maria insisted he accepted. The priest had asked Max if he had ever considered following in the church’s path to priesthood, Max accepted.

  Max had no grand illusions of being celibate, nor would he be required to stop drinking or smoking both of which he had become very fond of.

  Max grew up in much the same way as many of his neighborhood friends, the primary exception being his bi-weekly visits to the local perish. Max had taken part along with friends in the typical teenager pursuits of girls, booze, and cigarettes. He had forsaken the use of any type of drugs; his mother’s youngest brother had died of a heroin over dose while Max was still an impressionable little boy. The experience had forever scared him from the use of any type of drugs.

  Throughout middle and high school, Max lacked in all scholastic acumen. He was barely achieving a passing grade; Max realized he was left with few options in obtaining any form of post-secondary education. The family expected Max would continue in the masonry tradition, or some trade in the construction industry. The thought of committing his life to forced hard labor did not interest Max, saved only from several summers of working as a masonry laborer by volunteering around the parish each summer.

  The extensive time Max would spend in the parish working for father Loris Capelini convinced him his future would be that of a priest. Father Capelini would serve as a strong role model for young Max, he would provide the behind the scenes life of a priest that few had access to. A dedicated and well respected member of the church and community father Capelini maintained consistently strong streams of donations, always being one of the top grossing parishes in the country.

  This impressive financial performance kept father Capelini in good stead with the church; they would allow him to run his parish unabated and free of interference. Although math had never been Max’s strength’s he was street smart enough to discover in short order that father Capelini was skimming from the donation trays. One of Max’s duties would be to collect the donation trays during mass and to collect from the donation boxes located at the entrance to the church; the money was to be placed in a zippered pouch on the father’s office desk.

  Max discovered the parish’s ledger book while washing the office floor one Saturday morning, while father Capelini provided last rights for a member of the congregation who was dying of cancer. Looking through the amounts listed on the ledger Max noticed the Sunday amounts appeared less than amounts he had often counted before stuffing the total into the money bag to be placed on the father’s desk.

  The following Sunday Max counted to the dollar the amount of cash he was to stuff in the parish money bag, later that week he would sneak into the office to check the ledger total in the fathers absence. The confirmation of the skimming that Max had suspected written in the box on the far right hand side of the spread sheet , the total was some six hundred dollars less than what Max had counted before placing the money in the parish bag.

  So there was money to be made within these church walls thought a young Max Kaposi, money made without the sweat and pain of hard manual labor. The church also provided a small salary in addition to shelter and food, a car was also provided to the priest of each parish. It was not as if he would need to stop smoking or drinking which was widely accepted amongst priests, father Capelini indulging in both on a regular basis. As for being celibate how would they ever know if he was to visit brothels provided he traveled outside the parish to find them? Max had no aspirations of marriage; the thought of marrying a woman of similar qualities to his own mother nauseated him.

  As Max’s childhood friends headed off to College and work in local factories following high school Max with the help of father Capelini would begin training as a priest. For the next ten years Max was to study and travel throughout the country his first assignments as a newly ordained priest in the farthest remote reaches of the Nation. The death of father Capelini opened the door and opportunity for father Max Kaposi’s return to the same parish and neighborhood in which he had been raised.

  Father Kaposi was warmly received by the congregation, many of who had been childhood and family friends. In short order father Kaposi would become a permanent fixture within the social circles of the churches elite. The close relations father Kaposi garnered within the congregation resulted in a steady increase in the weekly donations made to the church.

  Max would skim the majority of these increases and pocket them. With donations declining continuously in neighboring parishes, Max’s ability to simply maintain the level of donations as father Capellini’s tenure held him in high enough esteem with his superiors to ensure he remained in the parish.. Father Max would use the funds he regularly removed from the donations to fund his excessive drinking and for the whores he would frequent, traveling to out of town locations to avoid being recognized.

  A regular fixture at many dinner parties and celebrations throughout the community, several members of the congregation utilized his extensive social connections to ascertain the most recent gossip of their fellow parishioners from father Max. It became a loosely held secret that dispensing a liberal amount of quality single malt scotch to father Max would produce an abundance of gossip from the inebriated priest. So treasured was the company of father Max to some of the churches parishioners one widower donated her late husband’s classic XJ6 Jaguar sedan, to the socialite priest.

  Father Max Kaposi could be seen plying the streets of the city center in the Robin egg blue four door sedan. The car was of the classic old world styling which had made Jaguar famous with its four prominent lights at the front of the long sloping hood which housed the massive twelve cylinder motor, the hood and chrome gill adorned with the brightly polished leaping Jaguar.

  The car had never been driven in the winter and after all these years remained in excellent original condition, the father would use it each and every summer to travel from the parish to a local pub or nightly dinner engagement. It was not uncommon for father Max to drive while being under the influence of alcohol, with the majority of the Police that patrolled the local streets attending mass regularly; he had little fear of being pulled over by the local authorities.

  The night of June twenty sixth had developed much the same way most Sunday evenings played out for the sociable priest. Having been invited to diner at the home of a prominent business member
within the parish, father Max had entertained those in attendance with stories of fellow member’s follies and problems. This was the typical routine of father Max following several glasses of quality Scotch, or cheap Scotch for that matter.

  Following a meal of prime rib and scotch, father Max Kaposi set off on his drive back to the parish, stumbling slightly as he rose to leave, the suggestion that perhaps he should not drive was dismissed with a

  “The lord will guide me safely home”

  After a brief thank you and a good night, the father set off down the road in his robin blue Jaguar XJ6. Having not had a cigarette for the past several hours, the current evenings hosts had been of the non-smoking variety. Father Max reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a cigarette from the half empty package of Lucky Six. Reaching over to the ash tray mounted lighter he pushed the knob in to heat the end of the cylinder. Back when the Jaguar was produced all cars came with a built in cigarette lighter, now smoking in cars with passengers is illegal.

  The father was thinking of the evening’s conversation, laughing to himself as the car floated down the city street. The sound of the lighter popping free of the cars electrical current disrupted the priests day dreaming, looking away from the road the priest removed his wayward glance from the narrow side street to retrieve fire for his fag. The stop sign would not be seen by the drunkard discipline to the divine, as he dove for one of his many desires that even the mighty lord had no salvation from.

  After setting down the last file and looking at the clock on the wall I realized that I had just spent close to twelve hours sequestered in Clyde’s secret cellar consuming the vivid details of his murderous files. I had been closer to Clyde than anyone alive, now I realized that no one person alive really knew him at all. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I needed to know but may never ask. It was six days since Sid and Clyde had left the base camp for the summit, the pair along with the four other members of the summit team should return to the base camp at some point today, in time for the midnight Eastern Time call.