About the Author

By Justin Klickermann

About the author is a murder mystery story in which the main character Justin Blackman, steals an unpublished murder mystery novel from his recently deceased roommate.

It is a first-hand account of how Justin Blackman steals the novel, hides the evidence, gets the novel published, and makes over a million dollars doing it.

The problem is that other people during the story begin to surface who know that the novel Justin Blackman has claimed authorship of, was actually written by his dead roommate Fred Banoner.

Justin Blackman must kill everyone who knows about it, and anyone who finds out, while evading police, and destroying all the evidence linking him to these murders; in order to keep his secret, reputation and money.

Will he be successful?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2006
• ISBN: 9781434310552

Justin Klickermann

Born in 1978 Justin Klickermann has attended five separate schools, and has worked for nine different companies. Justin has a strong technical and business background, and has enjoyed careers in technical support, sales, and customer service. Justin has also worked in the airline industry, food chains, security industry, and he even had a job in shipping and receiving. Justin is multi-talented and has vast interest ranging from sports, music, and exercise to science, physiology, and psychology. Justin's actual lifestyle, creativeness, powerful self-motivation, strong dedication to achieving his goals, and careful attention to detail, all play a role in his writings, as does the support of his many friends and loving family.

Book preview

© 2007 Justin Klickermann. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/2/2007

ISBN: 1-4343-1055-8 (e)

ISBN: 1-4259-2470-0 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

AFTERWARDS:

About The Author

CHAPTER 1

I find it difficult to write about Fred for reasons that will soon become obvious. I met Fred from a roommate wanted ad in the classifieds section of our local paper, The Ottawa Citizen. Fred was attending Ottawa University studying to become a physician, and I was a newbie writer who constantly dreamed of success.

The apartment we were sharing was a tiny 2 bedroom, which sometimes posed a bit of a personal space issue, when we both were entertaining ladies whom we had picked up in bars downtown.

We often went out together in the evening, but usually separated early on at night.

The apartment itself was located in what was known as the Glebe. It was a nice, quiet area, but the rent was an outrageous $800 per month. Fred was practically living off his credit cards and student loan. I was living day to day on the money I earned as a bag boy at the nearby Loeb food store.

Fred and I were getting in the habit of discussing our evenings, when we both ended up coming home alone. This really only happened 2 or 3 times per week. I had no problem picking up chicks, as I was a strong good-looking Irish boy.

Fred somehow managed to manipulate women into sleeping with him using only his charm and good manners. However the type of women he usually picked up were in my opinion hideous, fat and ugly. I could go into deeper detail, but I’m sure you get the idea. On the other hand I only went for hot shapely women who were harder to pick up, I guess you could say I consider myself to be somewhat of a pick up artist.

Often after discussing our evenings out, Fred would usually say he was going to hit the books, then go quietly to his room. I often thought of our discussions as a model for the dialogs, which I was trying to use in my novel.

Two months after becoming room mates with Fred we had our first spat. It was over a girl I had taken home from a bar that night. The next morning while discussing our evenings as usual, I mentioned that the girl I slept with last night left without waking me. He seemed somewhat surprised by that. You mean she was gone when you woke up? He asked. Ya, so what. I responded. After all I had been guilty of sneaky departures myself at times. He then looked at the clock and dashed to his room, as he usually did after our discussions, but then quickly reappeared. He mentioned that he was missing $200 from on top of his dresser and asked me if I had taken it. I told him I didn’t, and that I never even go in his room. That’s when it hit me. The girl who slept over last night must have taken it. I called the police to file a report, while Fred checked the apartment to see if anything else was missing.

Two hours later a police officer showed up to take the report. It appeared that in addition to Fred’s $200, we were also missing our answering machine, a cell phone and a few bus tickets. The police officer said he would let us know if anything turned up, and asked me to sign the report, then he promptly left the apartment. I felt mainly responsible for the robbery, as it was I who brought this lady into our home. I offered to give Fred $200, but he said not to worry about it, and that these things happen.

From that point on we seemed to talk less and less, almost as if we had just met, and the ice between us had not yet been broken, so to speak. Weeks went on and our formerly new, lower level of communication continued. I blamed it on the stress Fred was under due to his medical exams, but after the exams were over and the trend continued, I knew there must be something else bothering him, or he was keeping a pretty heavy grudge.

Eventually the continual waves of silence I felt from Fred had their effect on me. I was now 25 years old. I liked to think of myself as a writer, but since arriving here in Ottawa I had not even written out a grocery list, let alone a novel.

After finishing work that day, I decided to check out the local bookstore to see if I could get any ideas for my Novel. The next thing I saw was a crowd of people standing over by renowned author Walter Davis who appeared to be doing a book signing for his new book, ‘Coping With Despair’. That’s actually reading material I could use. I thought to myself, as I looked down at the book.

I had slowly been moving in amongst the crowd of people, getting closer and closer to the table where he was signing books. I picked up a copy instinctively while reading the cover, and he instinctively uncapped his pen to sign it. He signed it, at which point I mentioned that I too was writing a novel. Oh, ya. He said. I could immediately tell that he didn’t believe me. Then he asked me who my agent was. I immediately said the first name that came to mind Fred Banoner. ; Never heard of him. You should contact my agent. He replied, as he handed me a business card with his agents name on it.

I accepted it and moved out of the way. I went to the cash to pay for the book, and then continued on my way back to the apartment, where I planned to spend the rest of the day starting my novel. After all it wasn’t the inspiration I was lacking in. It was more the confidence, and perhaps this book Coping With Despair could help me get started. Reading something always seems to help me write better. I thought to myself. Plus having a place to send my finished work to, was also a big confidence booster.

I arrived home that evening at about 6:30 PM. I was on such a high that I didn’t even bother eating. I just went to the kitchen and made a large, and I mean large cup of instant coffee. I actually preferred the taste of instant coffee to real coffee. Well, I like Tim Horton’s, and Arabian fine ground perk coffee, but I definitely prefer instant coffee to cheaper brands like Folgers, Maxwell House, and Nabob ECT… If its not going to be instant coffee, then it’s got to be good. That’s my opinion and preference anyway.

So anxiously I took the tall cup of coffee over to my desk, swept off the dust, and threw away the dusty papers that lay on top of it. I got some fresh blank sheets out of the drawer and laid them in front of myself. Though I have nothing published, I prefer to use black legal ink pens on blank white pages to design my book. The artistic creativeness of starting out with nothing really seems to help. Well a few hours passed and still nothing worthwhile was on the paper. I wrote a bit about the bar scene and then threw it out as well.

I began to realize that Fred’s typing in the background was disturbing me. It became more and more annoying as time went on. Then the music he was playing began to distract me more and more. How could I concentrate if my mind kept wondering. Finally it all stopped. Silence at last. I thought to myself.

A few minutes later Fred came by my room and knocked on the door. Hey what’s up? I inquired. Not much, I was wondering if you could look at something for me. He replied. What is it? I asked. I heard him run back to his room. He came back and opened my door holding what must have been 200 full pages of neatly typed text. What is it? I asked again. It’s a novel I have been working on in my spare time, and I just finished it! He exclaimed.

Could you read it and let me know what you think? He asked. Hiding my jealousy perfectly I replied Sure, but it looks quite long so it might take me a week. ; That’s Ok, but don’t show it to anyone else, Okay. He said. Okay. I agreed. I’m going to bed now, I have to start a summer course on CPR tomorrow morning. Fred said abruptly, and then returned to his room.

I was lying there in shock skimming through what appeared to be a masterpiece at first glance. I kept skimming through Fred’s novel, trying to find faults with it. I didn’t have time to read the whole story by any means, but I read enough to figure out it was a who done it murder mystery novel.

The English it was written in was impeccable, which was far more then I could say about my own writings. There didn’t seem to be too much boring detail, and the novel seemed to keep me glued to the pages. It was basically about a man who was found dead in a hidden part of a house, which, up until 2 weeks ago, hadn’t been opened since the sixties. In this secret brick room there was a dusty table with cobwebs around it and several outlines in the dust which looked like what had been a recently moved box, and a couple of bags.

The story goes on and on, but eventually near the end, the novel reads that it was the owner of the home who was found dead. Apparently his fiancée knew about the money and killed him for it. The reason Jessica (his fiancée) told him she wanted to marry him was to get into the house, so she could gain access to the money. It used to be her house. It was later repossessed by the bank while she was in jail, thus the new owner.

She had been in what you might say was sort of a gang, which had robbed a long string of banks in the sixties and hid the money. It had been her idea to hide the proceeds from the roberies there. (in the hidden room in her home.) As you probably guessed they eventually got caught and ended up in jail. She was the first one out in 1985, the others would be out soon. She wanted at the money very badly, there was almost a million dollars in that room and she didn’t want to share it.

The story ends with her actually getting away with it, as she was clever enough to hide the body in the hidden room. She moved out and pretended to be living at a new residence for several months. She already had been renting an apartment since she was released from jail. She was also the one to file the missing person report with the police. In fact the police were never able to charge her due to lack of evidence.

Almost a year later she changed her name and moved again, so that her accomplices would not find her. And that’s how it ends. I thought that was quite a clever ending because it left just enough question, as to whether or not the main character would get found out by her accomplishes; that if the author wanted to write a sequel, he easily could.

I was extremely jealous at this point after reading 45 pages or so, because the novel Fred wrote entitled Murders Edge seemed flawless, as far as I could tell.

I remember when I first decided to become an author. It was after several failed Jobs, and a shortage of money. Once totally desperate for money, I had taken all my credit cards and deposited the money in the bank. I then started investing but soon lost 6 thousand dollars, then a year later another 5 thousand dollars for a total of 11 thousand dollars.

Eleven thousand dollars lost in total during my investing days. I knew then that I needed an investment in which I could not lose money, but only my time. After all, I’d rather waste my time then owe thousands of dollars. My passion for writing at this point was at an all time high, now that I was totally in debt and had nothing left to lose except my time. How is it that Fred has accomplished my dreams. I kept telling myself that I’m still young and that there was plenty of time left to write a novel, get it published, and that tomorrow was another day. Eventually with the light still on in my room and the book still in my hand I fell asleep.

The next morning I was awakened by the sound of Fred walking around in the kitchen. I knew he was starting his course in CPR today and I figured that class would last at least a couple of hours. I continued reading his novel Murders Edge discovering that one of the characters in the novel was based on ideas I had mentioned to Fred one night while still under the influence of alcohol. At this point I felt so angry I started to scan Fred’s entire novel 1 page at a time, after all, If he was going to steal my Ideas