The Unexpected Trip

By Perley J. Thibodeau

The road of life doesn't always have a lot of rest stop areas along the way.
Contents-Paid To Kill-Raining Money-Tales Of Greed-Mirror Mirror-It's Not The Money-Murder As Planned-By The Grace Of God-The Unexpected Trip-Small Town Big Talk-The Seven Deadly Sins-The Tightrope Of Life-Cover Up For A Killer-A Bird In A Gilded Cage-Murder Repeats Itself-His Final Horror Story-All The World's A Stage-The Curse Of The Vampire-Only Following The Rules-Who's Killing The Drag Queens-The Solved Case Of The Missing Mayor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Perley J. Thibodeau
• Release date: Nov 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311481658

Perley J. Thibodeau

Perley J. Thibodeau was born and lived the first 45 years of his life in Bangor, Maine. He now resides in Manhattan, New York

Book preview

TWENTY SHORT STORIES JUST TO WARN YOU THAT

WHEN YOU LEAST IMAGINE IT YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF

THE

UNEXPECTED

TRIP

PERLEY J. THIBODEAU

TALES OF MYSTERY

PUBLICATIONS

Copyright ©2015 by Perley J. Thibodeau

Tales of Mystery Publications

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

DISCLAIMER: This book is fiction in part based on facts. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is coincidental.

DEDICATED

TO

The late

J. PALMER LIBBY

EDUCATOR-ARTIST-ACTOR-MENTOR and

FRIEND

CONTENTS

PAID TO KILL

RAINING MONEY

TALES OF GREED

MIRROR-MIRROR

IT’S NOT THE MONEY

MURDER AS PLANNED

BY THE GRACE OF GOD

THE UNEXPECTED TRIP

SMALL TOWN BIG TALK

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

THE TIGHTROPE OF LIFE

COVER UP FOR A KILLER

A BIRD IN A GILDED CAGE

MURDER REPEATS ITSELF

HIS FINAL HORROR STORY

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

THE CURSE OF THE VAMPIRE

ONLY FOLLOWING THE RULES

WHO'S KILLING THE DRAG QUEENS

THE SOLVED CASE OF THE MISSING MAYOR

PAID TO KILL

A Short Story

‘If that’s another one of those annoying telephone calls from the phony Police Veteran’s Association begging money for a charity that doesn’t even exist, I swear I’ll curse at them in refusal of a donation made to their crooked cause. The man picking up the telephone on his desk, and seeing RESTRICTED CALL" printed on the answering machine’s window, vows to himself.

However, just as he loves junk paper mail filling his lobby mailbox, with the idea that junk mail is better than no mail at all, he welcomes the ringing of the phone’s intrusion on his otherwise dull existence, and curious to find out who it might be this time, he picks up the receiver, and says hello.

A mysterious sounding muffled voice that, due to the obviously applied thick padding over the caller’s mouth piece, sounds completely genderless in its vocal tone, now whispers a message plainly intended for his ear alone to hear.

Harvey? The voice asks.

Thinking it could be his slightly older sister on her usual drunk, with a head cold, or even both, he answers, Yes, and then duly listens to what the supposedly she, that he thinks it may be, has to say.

You don’t know me, but I am familiar with your present financial situation, and I have contacted you at this time to propose a business proposition that I believe you will be very interested in accepting as a chance to help alleviate the stressful situations that your low finances now impose on you.

Before you go any further, he interjects, are you sure that I am the Harvey to whom you wish to speak? He curiously inquires.

Harvey Collins? The strange voice now inquires in return.

Yes, that’s my name. He currently agrees. However, I would like to know how you seem to believe that I am in financial straits, when I’m not even sure who you are, or whether or not you have the right Harvey Collins. He slightly balks now at what he considers to be just another rude intrusion from some stranger looking to sign him up for some sort of a credit card with outlandish service fees, and late payment charges.

Both the names Harvey, and Collins are very common, He goes on to explain. That goes for singly, or as a full name. However, if you wish to make a proper paying pitch for a legitimate business venture, then I’ll be willing to listen. He concedes, knowing full well that he presently has no other pressing situations taking up his current time span.

Yes, the seemingly stranger’s voice agrees. I am certain that you are the Harvey Collins that I have intended to call, and now have done so. The now thoroughly unknown caller on the other end of his land line, and from the poor static filled reception indicating a cheap priced, use a few times and then throw away cell phone, call from the other end, firmly states.

With that much agreed between us, he almost curtly says. Just what does this business proposition that you have in mind between us consist of?

Having been given the vocal nod, the voice now goes on to explain.

I will pay you rather handsomely to ease the burden that life has become for a person that I know. It is stated out rightly.

The person is very elderly with an incurable illness that only has her lying in an irreversible coma and the doctors refuse to terminate her helpless condition due to so called professional ethics, which translates to mean they want the money they are receiving on a regular basis for her needless constant care, that is also a great part of her unhappiness.

The called man quickly assesses the mountain of bills he owes, with no way to get out from under them and to hopefully see his way to living a debt free life again and so he agrees to what the caller has stated as a fee due him, this if he’ll only perform the merciful act of releasing the old person from her miserable ties to this life, and set her free to go on to the afterlife, where she’ll be reunited with her loved ones, and exist emotionally and physically pain free as a healthy and happy young girl again.

Both the idea of the fee that will be paid to relieve his own misery, and that of the ill person sounds more like a charitable deed than a full financial proposal, and so he agrees, and listens to the details that the voice on the phone has to offer.

You will be paid to assist the woman to happiness whom I describe to you. Her muffled voice takes on a more gentle quality, knowing that he has accepted the job, and that her longed for task will be completed to her satisfaction. Also, I will supply the information as to her whereabouts, and when the best time will be for following through with the procedure so you can complete your end of the agreement, and after I am assured everything is complete, I will give you ten thousand dollars, and another ten thousand after the deed has been done. She finishes. The entire amount to be paid in the two installments mentioned, and in cash money.

It is two days later that he receives a totally untraceable cashier’s check in his personal apartment building’s mail box, and the very thought that he can earn another of the matching amount, for as simple a task as was described to him on the telephone, elates him as he quickly heads to the closest branch of the full purpose bank he uses on a regular basis, and deposits the paper bank desk check into his personal checking account.

He drives his car to Atlantic City putting charges on his debit card under his own name, and upon arrival he checks into a modestly priced hotel that he is slightly familiar with, and then quickly returns to New York City by bus under another name for the now planned murder. This with the idea to then immediately ride back to Atlantic City under a different assumed name, on a different bus paying cash for both anonymous trips, and he intends to repeat the drive back to New York under his own name, with these toll expenses taken off his debit card both ways as a further alibi, like the first trip down south was. Both, just in case anyone claims to have seen him in the hospital during the old woman’s deliberately performed untimely death.

Now back in New York and cautiously avoiding going to his apartment where he could be recognized, he goes directly from the bus terminal to the hospital mentioned by the anonymous caller, and there he enters a public men’s rest room on the first floor lobby level where he dresses in an authentic medically approved doctor’s scrub outfit that he acquired many years ago as a Halloween Costume. This complete with plastic shoe and shower cap type head cover, a face mask tied in the back, and rubber surgical gloves on his hands. Now dressed in all identity concealing scrubs, he carefully places his trousers, shirt and all concealing hat, that got him past the security cameras, into his back pack, to be taken out and changed into in the same restroom on the way out of the building after his deadly mission has been accomplished.

‘It’s not unusual for a doctor to carry a back pack around with him, even into the operating room where they can watch their belongings, all the while performing the medical procedures that they have been hired by the hospital to do." He confidently reasons, as he now heads for the ultra private wing of the hospital, as described by the voice on the telephone as being where his assignment is on a life saving breathing apparatus in her private room.

He finds himself fighting down the apprehensive feeling of a nurse, or some other hospital personnel being on duty outside the door that he is on his way to. However, he has been more than assured that the private nurse on duty will be sent on a long errand by the caller at this precise time he’s planned to arrive, and so there won’t be anyone there to interfere with what he has to do.

The shades are drawn, and the room in which his described victim lies in bed is in deep shadows, as he makes his way to the old woman’s bedside. Drawing closer to the bed in order to find the shut off valve that controls the respirator, as minutely described by the eerie voice on the telephone, he hears the elderly woman stir slightly in the bed.

Is that you, Harvey? her voice weakly asks.

It unnerves him to hear the old woman unintentionally mention his name. He doesn’t answer, as he quickly decides that it is a coincidence that he has the same name along with another person who shares her life.

‘After all, Harvey is a fairly common name, he’s thinking, as he shakes it from his mind as, ‘Yes, a mere coincidence."

Besides, he has all kinds of money for murder in his thoughts, and a paid for mission to perform. And so, he quickly performs the deed that he came there for, then hurriedly leaves the room.

‘She must be an extremely rich woman to have all this privacy in her medical needs at such an imagined old age. He’s thinking, while waiting for the single private elevator that will take him back to the first floor where he’ll change clothes and leave. ‘I know just about all the rich women in New York City, and also, of even some beyond, he continues to think over, now with his paid for job done, and safely in the elevator, and on his way down. ‘I wonder if I knew her?"

He’s notified by a distant cousin the next day that his mother has died unexpectantly in a certain hospital. The one he had gone to, and it comes out in the paper that his sister is suing that hospital for wrongful death of the mother, as her breathing tubes on the respirator had malfunctioned causing her death.

Thinking this too may be just a coincidence, he attends the mother’s funeral, not acknowledging the sister’s presence anymore than to nod slightly to her presence, and then leaves when the ceremony is over.

He soon gets another strange telephone message from the original caller telling him that it was he who killed his own mother, and she won’t be paying the money owed for the heartless act until he meets her at a dark deserted park’s picnic area, and she has a further talk with him..

What a stupid oaf you are! She says. There won’t be any further payment as you were promised. And you will not inherit half of everything your mother left, as you can’t collect money for profit having committed the crime. I have proof that you killed your mother," the voice hisses, vitriolically.

How do you know I killed mother? He screams back in hopeless rage at her accusations on the telephone

Because, I was the person who paid you the ten thousand dollars to kill her! She almost screams. I have papers for you to sign off on your mother’s will. If you don’t, I’ll report the fact that you killed her.

Taken completely aback at this news, he tells her to make out the papers, and to meet him at a secluded spot familiar from their childhood, and he’ll sign them.

He remembers the sister had once kept him working painting her newly bought two story apartment house for a couple of cheap shots of liquor to him, and when he finished painting the house, she laughingly bragged that she sold it for a profit, kept the money, and would move to Arizona.

Being that much into it, he figures that he has nothing more to lose, so as agreed, he waits for her in the dark lonely spot, until he sees she appears in the shadows.

The slight snapping noise of a small thin tree branch on the ground under Harvey’s right foot surprises the person waiting to meet him.

Is that you, Harvey? She asks, in frightened tones?"

Yes, it is! He quickly replies. I was almost sure that the caller was you, Dorothy. He now confidently addresses his positively recognized slightly older sister.

Why are you wearing heavy white socks over your dress shoes, and thin surgical gloves on your hands? She asks, slightly perplexed.

You know how susceptible to rashes , and other diseases I am, Dorothy He goes on to quietly add. What with Lyme Disease, and other lesser known parasites about this grass and bush crowded area, I felt it was best that I protect myself in advance. He skillfully lies.

You always were a spleeny child. She barely allows herself to even try to be tender in that spoken thought. Which has always been her usual wont of communication towards him.

Seeing in the grey shadowy surroundings that she has accepted that explanation, he goes on to ask. Now be quick to tell me just what it is that you want in lieu of not paying me the promised amount of money that I thought would be coming to me for prematurely ending the life of a sick and suffering old lady, that was never identified to me by you as being our own mother.

The sister now reaches into the depths of her slightly oversized pocketbook and she extracts what looks like a blue paper covered legal document. She straightens it out to its full 8x10 typewriter dimensions, carefully folds the top and middle section over backward to each other, and with the bottom half of the text all that is now exposed, she firmly pushes it over to him.

Here, she unyieldingly demands. Sign this!

May I at least read it first? The younger brother almost demurely inquires.

There’s really no need to read it, Harvey. She harshly protests. That would just be wasting time, and causing us to stay in this desolate place all the longer. She goes on to demand. I can assure you that I have had my Harvard Law School graduate business attorney put it all together, and it is an ironclad agreement that will soon be signed between the both of us, and already stamped and personally witnessed by him, and a member of his office staff.

And what does it pertain to?

He knows right well that she’s a demon when it comes to making, not just him, but anyone that she’s dealing with toe the mark in relenting to giving in to just whatever it is that she wants, and fully expects to receive. And he, Harvey Collins has never, in all the time of growing up under her imposed tyranny, ever dared bring the further wrath of his parents down on him by denying their only daughter any of her, sometimes simply on a whim to show her authority, demands

It was whispered among the aunts and maternal grandmother that their mother had been pregnant before marriage, and the mother had used various spices and chemicals, personally bought by her future husband, in a bath tub of the parent’s house in order to abort the, at that time considered to be, illegitimate unborn baby. The baby was born dead, after a marriage ceremony was performed, the husband had it buried, but told his new wife that he couldn’t remember just where. Thus, not knowing where her first born was interred, the mother gave birth to the second child, which was named Dorothy, and they both spoiled her rotten from birth and all through adulthood to over compensate for the baby boy that had been killed by the two of them before it was born. That, of course, had left the next born named Harvey to suffer the consequences all of his life for the self gratifying self centered monster that his parents had created in his slightly older sister.

‘But it had never done Dorothy any good," Harvey has long ago reasoned.

‘As a man, I was expected to be self supporting in taking a nice steady average pay bank teller’s job, while she married a ne'er-do-well and handsome rogue of a man who spent his time driving around in a new expensive convertible car every year with other women when she was busy passing him checks their mother gave to her, but not to support him, and he introduced her to a hard drinking crowd that gave her an alcohol dependency that she made a steady habit of, and that only increased when she had finally gotten rid of him, and acquired a steady job just for pastime, and started to invest her weekly paycheck in a profit sharing plan that the company she worked for those many years had not only matched each stock she bought, but also, when the stocks split, she got two stocks that equaled in value the original stocks, only then she had double the number of stocks earning that much more interest."

This again caused him in the past to wonder just why the ever increasing greed for money escalated as the drinking became more and more intense. Almost as if both bad habits fed on each other, and they together controlled every living cell in her body. But he had long ago decided that had to be her problem alone, and not his to have to think about at all.

Looking at her now trying to force him to sign a legal paper, the contents of which are to him sight unseen, only proves to him all the more, with all this past knowledge, what a thoroughly nasty, self centered greedy person that she really is. To the point where anyone who inquires after his parents, or him never includes a question as to how Dorothy is doing. Just as though she doesn’t even exist."

Sign the paper! She demands loudly, for the quiet surrounding area that she had chosen for this meeting. I’ll explain it all to you at another time, after I file it with the local probate court along with mother’s last known will and testament.

‘Has alcohol destroyed her brain cells to the point that she doesn’t fully comprehend the fact that I stopped associating with her years ago, and only kept a very distantly cool relationship whenever it was necessary to come anywhere near her for appearance sake, and that of our mother, after our father had passed away? He’s now wondering. ‘Does she still think she has the same hold over me that she was handed to at my birth?

But he decides to play this meeting cool also, as he quietly states.

But I have no pen to sign it with. He deliberately demurs, with just the same familiar beaten down dog voice that he has always had to use if he ever wanted to keep any kind of a semblance of peace in the family.

Smelling victory in her latest demands, just as with the past ones, she immediately reaches back into her pocketbook and brings out a ball point ink pen. Pushing the top down to expose the other end of the pen to make it capable of being used to record Harvey’s signature on the legal paper, she practically jams it forcefully into his hand, along with the almost spitted out hissed words, Here, use this. It’s a good thing at least one of us has come prepared.

Beaten into defeat once more, and with the usual nasty put down zinger pertaining to his worthlessness again triumphantly spoken, he demurs lightly in stating. Did you bring a desk to sign the paper on, also? He quietly acquiesces.

Don’t be so wise, she snarls her reply. Here, turning her back to him, she continues to say. Here, lay the paper on my back and sign it there. But make sure the two separate papers line up, and press firmly with the pen so that the signature is fully legible.

‘Odd request. Harvey ventures to think. ‘But nonetheless, she has unsuspectingly provided the perfect body position for the signature that I am about to impart.

Silently withdrawing an illegal length switchblade knife that he had picked up out of curiosity at a rummage sale years before, it’s only a flick of the thumb on the handle’s button that releases the blade, and with a single ominous click noise, it juts out straight forward, simultaneously accompanied by a lifting of the hand that the force of the arm movement behind it makes to thrust forward and downward, and causing the sharp blade of the knife to sink to its full hilt right between the cloth covered unseen shoulder blades. The motion causes a quick gasp of pain, accompanied by a noisy release of air from the lungs of the villainous woman, as she falls forward, landing motionlessly face down, as dead as the browning late summer leaves that create an appropriate carpet for her also now dead body.

That deed done, he withdraws a plastic enfolded plain white man’s handkerchief from his pants pocket, one that he has somehow saved from years past, and uses it to wipe his sister’s blood from the now withdrawn switchblade, then throws the knife down onto her motionless back, with the bloody white cotton square atop it. This in his mind as a final defiant gesture to prove to himself that he has wiped clean any past and future involvement with this creature that he has detested for his entire past life.

Just at the last bench before the dark and cameraless exit gate, he briefly sits to remove the white socks covering his shoes, and the plastic surgical gloves. Carefully placing them in the wrap that the handkerchief had come from, he exits the park, again uses his non identifying two fare transit card at the closest subway station for a second long ride to Coney Island, with a stop along the way where he’ll throw the small package into a large covered rubbage container, and then board the next train to finish his trip where he’ll walk around looking at the nostalgic sights and sounds before again boarding a train back to Manhattan, again using his own time stamped ride pass as proof that he earlier had been in far off Kings County, and hours later had returned to Manhattan, and all this during the police estimated time of his sister’s homicide.

‘And don’t forget to destroy and rid yourself of this paper that Dorothy had wanted signed to black mail me into signing the mother’s entire inheritance over to her.’ He remembers, on the first leg of the trip to the world famous amusement park. ‘I’m sure her Harvard graduated lawyer hasn’t kept a copy of it himself from fear of getting involved with murder."

Harvey currently sits back and relaxes from the exertions of the now gone by section of this present night, as the A, as in alibi, Train speeds forth to its usual seaside destination.

HEIRESS TO VAST FORTUNE FOUND MURDERED

The next day’s newspaper headlines exclaim in large bold type, as Harvey continues to sip his morning coffee while surfing the internet for any news of what has transpired the night before.

"An heiress to an old New York City fortune has been found dead in an isolated section of a park in Long Island City, Queens.

An early morning jogger came across the body of Dorothy Langford

Collins on his morning run today, and police detectives are scouring the area for any clues that will solve the homicide case of the heiress to a, rumored to be estimated at well over one billion dollar, estate.

As recently duly reported, it was Miss Collins who probated the will of her mother, Annabelle Langford Collins, upon the mysterious death of the latter that occurred under unexplained circumstances at the chic private hospital in which she was an honored patient, due to her many philanthropic monetary donations made over the years since she became the widow of New York City’s self made billionaire Barnabus P. Collins.

It was also announced at the recent will filing procedure that the now late

Dorothy Langford Collins had also registered a wrongful death suit against the hospital in which her mother prematurely died, that being made known as being well over one billion dollars, also.

Single and leaving no other known heirs except a younger brother, Harvey

Langford Collins, means that the brother will inherit both of the deceased women’s entire estates, plus any monetary settlement derived from the multi million dollar lawsuit against the hospital involved in the mother’s death.

Police have questioned Mister Collins about both his mother’s and sister’s mysterious demises, and have announced that he is not a suspect in either deaths, as he has proven without doubt to have been vacationing in Atlantic

City at the time of his mother’s demise, and on a nostalgic visit to Brooklyn’s

Coney Island when his sister was killed."

Besides being assigned to investigate your sister’s recent death, the police detective says, while talking to Harvey in Harvey’s small cramped living room. I’m also assigned to investigate the recent death of your mother, whose breathing apparatus had some how been shut off. That’s why I‘ve come to return the valid evidence consisting of cancelled toll fares that prove you were in Atlantic City at the time of her death, and the subway fare pass that says you were in Coney Island when Miss Collins was killed. That, of course leaves you entirely in the clear of any possible charges. He says, now lingering slightly in preparing to leave. Your sister is still technically suing the hospital, but she admitted it was she who sent the private nurse on an errand, but she distinctly remembers telling the hospital desk clerk to have her covered at the room for protection. Which they apparently didn’t do.

I deduced that much from the media coverage. Harvey amiably, but with a proper tinge of sadness to his emotionally troubled sounding voice, agrees. I don’t know of any enemies that my now late mother may have had. He volunteers, in order to further convince the investigating policeman of his own innocence. The only scenario that comes to mind, that makes any sense out of all this jumble, is the possibility that the machine my mother was relying on for the breath to continue to live may have not been turned on in the first place, or even malfunctioned, providing enough time to leave my mother oxygen-less, thus prematurely ending her struggle to maintain the fine thread of life.

Yes, the officer quietly replies. I can almost agree with all of those, not having the full details that will be coming forth from the hospital, and or, the manufacturer of the breathing aide, themselves.

A deep breath, resulting in a heavy sad forlorn sigh is all that Harvey can muster at this very idea.

Your parents led a remarkably quiet, almost reclusive life considering the fact that they had acquired so much material wealth during their marriage. The detective goes on to state, still having the slightly patronizing attitude of a funeral director, neither robust, nor too in grief sounding. To tell you the truth, up until the obituary came out in the media, I, myself, had never even heard either of their names mentioned. He adds. Including the existence of either you, or your sister Dorothy.

Yes, my parents wanted it that way for the protection that only full anonymity can afford. Harvey agrees. They did donate heavily to various charities, and building funds for hospitals, I understand, but it was all done low key, and designed to keep their names, and other identifying facts about our family, out of the media.

I understand that your sister was married and divorced, having changed her name back to her maiden name of Collins from the last name of the man that she was once married to.

Yes, that’s right. Harvey agrees. When she finally realized what my mother had been telling her from the start of that so called marriage was all true, and not just idle gossip, she got rid of him and continued with what she considered to be a life.

You didn’t agree that it was, I take it? The detective now knowingly probes.

It is not for me to say, nor has it ever been, in what way other people conduct the business of their personal lives. Harvey says, obviously in conclusion.

And the former brother in law?"

"Died completely dissipated from alcohol out in New Mexico years