FFF #30

In the purple and gray morning Les heard the last hoot of an owl somewhere in the woods behind his house. He was sitting on the back porch steps, drinking coffee and smoking cigarette after cigarette, waiting for the first sound of the hawk that had been flying overhead for three mornings now. He picked up his deer rifle and snapped the lens cover off the scope and put it in his shirt pocket.

Marge, his wife, stepped out of the kitchen door, her old paisley gown wrapped around her. "You got any cigarettes left, hon?"

Les stood up and turned sideways to look at her and keep his good right ear peeled for the sounds up in the sky. "Hell no...must've smoked 'em all," he lied.

"You never think about anyone but yourself! Goddammit, I'm getting dressed and running over to Lilly's for coffee."

"Get the hell out of here then," he said, "you're yelling will run off everything in the woods."

She slammed the door and he pointed the rifle at it and said, "Bang, bang, bitch!" then turned and walked out into the back yard. The sky was starting to lighten into blue and an orange light was starting to finger through the woods as the sun broke the horizon.

From above he heard the distinct cry of the hawk flying in somewhere high from the north.
He walked over to the phoney well Marge had made him place back there; for the 'old timey' look, she'd said, and he shouldered the rifle and used the roof of the well to steady it. The hawk screamed once again as it cleared the top of the trees and he followed it in his scope and when the cross hairs were just right, Les pulled the trigger. A shot rang out as he squeezed the trigger but the rifle misfired.

"What the hell?" he said as he dropped the rifle and felt his chest explode with pain. He turned as he fell and saw Marge smiling at him as she pulled the trigger on the three-fifty-seven one more time.

She walked over to him, dropped the pistol on the ground beside his body then stooped down and pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. "Liar," she said, lit up a cigarette and watched as the hawk circled high above and then flew off in the direction of the rising sun.

FFF #29 Phone Call from Dad

"I never said you were going down in history."

"But you said I were goin' to be President!"

"Was going to be President, Son! When are you going to learn intelligible sentences? You had the finest education big money could buy..."

"Well, I'm workin' hard on that..."

"And that's another thing: when are you going to lose that phrase?"

"But it's one o' my speech writers favorite!"

"Don't I know it, that along with the rest of your writers favorites-- like 'weapons of mass destruction' and 'evildoers'-- are really getting redundant. Tell them birds in your writers bullpen you want some new phrases."

"I kinda like 'em all..."

"Quit pouting, Son, it's okay. Anyway, you don't have to worry about the next election."

"Well, you know what you said about the constitution has done what it was designed to do..."

"Sorry, I've forgotten..."

"About how this Democracy has about run its course? I think you're right and before twenty-oh-eight I'll have my Kingdom in place. Wow, I can't wait to wear my crown! My old lady is goin' to make one hotsy Queen!"

"Son! Son! I really didn't mean for you take everything I say seriously! What I meant was you can't run in the next election. You're only allowed two terms in office."

"Who says so?"

"The Constitution; it's an amendment."

"Is that all? Shoot, I'll just ignore that and run anyway. Who's going to stop me?"

"Congress, more than likely, Son."

"Ha, ha, ha...that'll be the day. They ain't stopped me before and that whole bunch already thinks I'm King!"

"I'm going to hang up, Son, I think might be drinking a little too much."

"Naw, Dad, I'm just high on power."

FF #28

The realization slowly dawned on me that this was not my finest hour. Somewhere around murder number three I knew how easy it was to commit the perfect murder. Actually I'd thought about it once in a while before murder number one (the first necessary one) as I'd been in forensics for a dozen years. Then I found out my wife was cheating on me and her murder--planned down to the smallest forensic detail-- had went off without a hitch.

Another two years went by before murder number two became a necessity as killing my boss was the only way I could advance my position. It went as well as the first one and I assumed his position as Director of Forensics. I got married a year later and damned if I didn't marry another harlot...so murder number three--planned and executed with more than the usual attention to removing the gory details-- was another success.

I had number four laid at my doorstep. Some new hot dog detective had been fooling around in the cold case files and brought me the file on my bosses murder. The problem here was two-fold: I had to convince him that he was wasting his time and then I had to kill him before he saw too many similarities to my murdered wives.

So the first thing I did was go into the cold case files (and there were hundreds of them in this large city) and pick two or three different murders where there were definite modus operandi, similarities so striking the same killer must have done them all.

I picked three rape/murders of beautiful women and the hot dog couldn't resist investigating them-- right then I pegged him as some kind of letch. Problem number two was then tackled and I came up with another perfect plan. I lured the hot dog out to one of the beautiful woman's rape/murder site and unloaded an untraceable Colt 45 into him. I checked the crime scene and it was clue free, as usual. I decided to throw the gun into the trunk of his cruiser and proceeded to open it. At this very moment I am eyeballing the naked, apparently raped and murdered corpse of a very beautiful woman! The hot dog was playing both sides of the fence!

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

FFF #27

The transom. If I forgot the transom,
then how would I get the ransom?
If the ransom is thrown over the transom
and the transom is closed to the ransom,
then the plan I thought grandsome
is blown by forgetting to open
the transom to the ransom.

Moral: If you're collecting money for a ransom and you're forgetful, change your plan.