Crime du Jour

By Diane R. Thompson

A crime a day keeps the injustice away.

31 very short tales of crime and criminals, from Aggravated Assault to White-Collar Crime, for those days when you need to escape from law and order...

...and through the loopholes to the dark side of justice.

From a high-school sewing club that has taken up some illegal classic patterns, to a wealthy clique with a strange Halloween celebration. From a tour guide who knows where to find a timely shovel, to a serial killer with multi-purpose luggage. From good-luck charms that only a shoplifter can love, to a literary money-laundering scheme.

31 twisted tales of revenge, racketeering, and resetting other people's passwords.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wonderland Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393353119

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Copyright Information

Crime du Jour

Copyright © 2019 by DeAnna Knippling, writing as Diane R. Thompson

Cover image copyright © macrovector | Depositphotos.com

Cover design copyright © 2019 by DeAnna Knippling

Interior design copyright © 2019 by DeAnna Knippling

Published by Wonderland Press

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. Discover more by this author at www.Wonderlandpress.com.

Crime du Jour: 31 Days of Malfeasance, Misconduct, and Immorality

Introduction

A crime a day keeps the injustice away.

Why do we readers like crime fiction so much? Not mystery fiction, per se, but crime fiction: stories that mainly focus on criminals, and not the people who track them down.

And why do the same people—and I’m one of ’em—who like to read about detectives and other investigators solving mysteries also seem to love to read about thieves, murderers, and lawyers getting away with the same crimes that we wanted solved only last week?

It seems that we are often fans of both sides of the criminal equation: the cops and the robbers, the thieves and the people stolen from, the murderers and their victims.

Why is that?

Let’s look at some common types of crime stories and see if we can find out.

First there are true crime books, like In Cold Blood, in which the reader dips into the details of a crime, trying to work out how the criminal thinks. What made the criminal tip over the edge? Or was the criminal already over the edge, and just happened to get caught?

And then there are crime books where the reader is invited into the world of the criminal. Organized crime novels like The Godfather or Prizzi’s Honor (and sometimes police novels like The Choirboys) are often featured here, in which the reader gets to revel in a hidden society with a strict code, and see people rewarded or punished according to that code.

The code giveth, and the code taketh away.

Psychological crimes or how-done-its, often in the vein of Ruth Rendell’s A Dark-Adapted Eye, also follow a code. The code isn’t an external one, but that of inescapable logic: the crime is set up, the players are revealed and their psyches defined, and then the situation topples like a series of perfectly arranged dominoes. These types of novels are often tragedies, without the sly wink of a happy ending.

My favorites, though, are the criminals who suddenly find themselves up against the boundary of what they will and won’t do. These kinds of stories range from Donald Westlake’s comedic caper Dortmunder stories to the Hannibal Lecter stories of Thomas Harris (yes, there are things Hannibal Lecter won’t do: he won’t do anything distasteful). Dortmunder will kidnap a kid, but he won’t hurt him, no matter how annoying. Hannibal Lecter will eat a man, but he won’t let a colleague run around with unexamined childhood traumas. One should know why one behaves with seeming irrationality, after all.

But what ties these common types of crime stories together?

A sense of justice.

True crime books define what justice should be: this is what we think happened; that is what should have happened. Justice is an ideal to which reality doesn’t always conform, but at least we can try.

Books about the world of the criminal show that, even in a world where legal justice is often lacking, some type of moral code must occur. The life of a criminal can’t be pure chaos, not if the criminal wants to keep on committing crimes. Justice keeps the system running—even corrupt systems.

With psychological crime fiction, that code is even less yielding than that of the Mafia, being human nature itself. Justice is a force of nature.

And, in my favorite books, the code is purely individual. It all comes down to something personal and intimate: one’s own character. Justice is, finally, whatever the character decides it is.

No wonder the same people who want to see mysteries solved want to read about criminals. Reading about the opposite of justice, or rather the far outer edges of it, only leads the reader back to justice itself.

Although those readers may find a darker, sweeter version of justice on the flip side. And that has an appeal, too.

So here are 31 days’ worth of crime, or justice, however you want to look at it.

May you find these stories toothsome and a little bittersweet.

Day 1: Aggravated Assault

Sewing Club

She’s sixteen years old and the kind of dame to die for, a brunette with wide eyes whose color disappears into shadows and mystery. Call her Lila.

She says, I have a problem.

Me, I’m seventeen, already balding, the kind of good teeth that have never seen braces. I’m not handsome, just forgettable. Mattie, my best friend but who goes to a different school, says that when I get older at least I’ll look like Joe Pantoliano from The Matrix. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not; the guy plays a real backstabbing son of a bitch.

What’s the problem?

I need to have someone taught a lesson. Lila slides me a manila envelope marked McCall’s Patterns 1989-1991. I pop it open. Inside is a Nintendo game cartridge, sparkling gold. I purse my lips. Is that—?

She nods, and I believe her. A 1990 Nintendo World Championship Gold Edition cartridge. The last one sold on Ebay for over $25 grand.

Who? I say.

Lila names the name, and somehow I’m not surprised: Ms. Clapper, Ms. Eunice Ann Clapper. She’s a psychology teacher at our high school, old, been around forever. She even used to go to school here. I won’t get into details, but I’m not against the idea of teaching her a lesson. Three kids from her class have committed suicide this year. Two more last summer, after having a class with her. Evil isn’t the word for what she does.

I nod and push the envelope back toward Lila.

Don’t you want it?

After, I say.

You trust me?

I shake my head and she gives that smile, the one to die for.

· · ·

I’m in Clapper’s classroom. Low ceiling, acoustical tiles, fluorescent lights. Black pressboard tables with one or two seats at them—mostly two. Whiteboards, synchronized clock, a poster of Freud smoking a cigar, another poster of a shrugging cartoon character that reads Trust Me, I’m A Psychologist.

Hello, Dylan, Clapper says, looking up from her laptop on a neatly-ordered desk.

Hello, Ms. Clapper, I say. We make small talk for a minute. Then I say, Gotten any death threats lately?

She snorts. When do I not?

I slid a manila envelope across her desk to her. Butterick Classics Fast & Easy Women’s. She goes still.

I say, What size?

She chokes out, Where did you get that? We haven’t had Home Ec classes in years.

I tell her to open the envelope and she does. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and maybe that’s so. This one’s worth over $25 grand.

What size? I say. I’m guessing you’re a twelve or a fourteen petite, these days.

I used to be a size four, she says. Stumbling over the words.

Hey, you want to be a size four, you can be a size four. I shrug. "But I wouldn’t call you a size four. I wave at the picture. Not yet, anyway."

She screws up her eyes and her mouth goes bitter. S-sixteen, she stutters. I’m a size sixteen.

I can see you in size sixteen—if you don't think you can fit into something smaller, that is. I’ll get the pattern sewn up, I say.

When?

Hey, rush job like this, it’s gotta be soon. I slide the photograph back into the envelope. They scan all these patterns and put them online now, you know? Good patterns like this, they shouldn’t get lost. Sometimes the size you want is hard to find. You can get custom fabric printed up, too.

She tells me to do something anatomically impossible.

I chuckle. You older people these days, you think you were the last ones to practice arts and crafts. Home Ec class is still around. It’s just online these days.

I leave. It’s a satisfying moment.

We all knew those kids.

· · ·

Size zero is disappeared without a trace.

Size two is accidental death—brutal.

Size four is making it look like suicide, or forcing people to actually kill themselves.

Size six is accidental strangulation—you know, sex stuff.

Size eight is overdose.

Size ten is accidental death—not brutal.

Size twelve is losing a limb, or an eye.

Size fourteen is facial scarring.

Size sixteen is aggravated assault.

I could keep going, but you get the point.

If you look up the 1973 yearbook, you can see Clapper’s photo in the clubs & groups section.

Head of the Sewing Club.

· · ·

Lila says, She says she didn’t know who hit her.

I shrug. She shouldn't.

Good job. She slides the manila envelope over to me.

I check the contents and nod.

She hesitates, almost like she wants to throw in a little extra. I say, Anytime you need a size sixty-nine… and she grimaces. The mask is back on. I shrug. Good luck with sewing club.

It’s called Stitch’n’Bitch now, loser, she says, flicking her fingers toward the envelope. "Have fun