Day 243 on the job. Happy the clown is dead. Not just dead, decapitated. His innards spilled all over the ground. Two construction workers found him on their way to work. We set up a perimeter tried to keep the press out but it was too public a spot. Soon the news of yet another murder was all over the town. It is the third in just a week.
First it started with Hank Smith, the grizzled veteran of two wars was found cut in half. A few days later the famous model Kimberly Wellington was found, or at least what was left of her. She had been decapitated, her arms had been cut off, and her legs had been broken. And now Happy the Clown.
As a detective I could've understood someone murdering Hank or Kimberly. Hank had a way of rubbing people the wrong way and certainly his violent ways earned him few friends and many enemies. Kimberly was beautiful to be sure, but that beauty barely covered the surface. Wherever she went she made enemies of men and women alike. Coroner even found that she was a grand central station to many sexually transmitted diseases. There were plenty of people that wanted Hank and Kimberly dead, but everyone loved Happy the Clown. His death has really set us back to square one.
There is the possibility that murders are unrelated, Chief Jones had postulated that earlier. But I don't buy it for a New York second. Jimtown is a small town. Sure it that had a few people go missing but until Hank it never seen a murder. It is highly unlikely that two murderers would suddenly appear and start using the same tactics. Jones might think otherwise, but there is a single culprit.
With Brad the baker's alibi solid and Manuel, the contractor's, motive now shaken I went back to square one, the street and the usual suspects. First on my call list was Red Monkey gang of the Upper East Side. The Red Monkey gang is an offshoot of some Chinese street gang. They have a rivalry with the Green Men gang from the lower east side. The two rough each other up and occasionally one of them will go missing. It's no big loss, just another criminal off the streets, but they had never resorted to such murder.
"We don't know shit! You pigs better get your act together or we all dead motherfucker!" Fat Louie, the leader of the Red Monkeys, had told me.
I had expected as much, but I had to start somewhere and the Red Monkeys had eyes and ears everywhere. The fact that they hadn't seen anything, or were unwilling to tell, was troubling. Next I paid a visit to Jake Hammer, leader of the Green men gang.
The Green men gang was an ultra-patriotic-hyper-american antithesis of the Red Monkey gang. While everything Fat Louie said was up for suspicion the Green men are always happy to help a man in uniform, so long as it wasn't about their own activities.
"I was meaning to talk to you about that. We don't know anything but we suspect the Red Monkeys are behind it." Jake had said.
"They insist they know nothing and I have reason to believe them." I replied.
"Those commie Chinese, you can't believe what they say." Jake spat.
"Jake, they're just as scared as everyone else."
"I'm telling you they're behind this. They never liked Hank and they wanted Kimberly dead for years."
"And what of Happy?"
"Maybe he owed them money?"
Happy the Clown didn't owe anyone anything.
I left Jake as clueless and twice as dejected as I was when I started. A bus drove past me. I could see fear in the passenger's faces; they were all thinking the same thing.
"Am I next?"
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"Sammy! You stay out of Jimmy's room!" A voice shouted from downstairs as the door flew open.
A small chunky toddler waddled into the room. The toddler knocked over a tower of legos, kicked at a small cluster of army men, and picked up a monkey from the barrel of monkeys and stuck it in his small slobbery mouth.
A haggard middle aged woman in a floral shirt and white shorts came into the room and picked up the toddler.
"No no Sammy! Jimmy doesn't like you to go into his room" The woman said in a high pitched baby voice as she reached into the toddlers mouth and pulled out the red monkey. The monkey's head was twisted and one arm was missing.
"Sammy what am I to do with you?!" The woman continued with an exacerbated voice as she fished out the red monkey arm from the toddler's mouth. The toddle gurgled happily as the woman threw both the monkey and its arm on the floor by a broken clown doll with stuffing crawling out its neck and left the room.
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Day 244 on the job. Things are spiraling out of control. Part of the construction site collapsed suspiciously killing the two construction workers that found Happy yesterday. Fat Louie was found dead, his head had been crushed and one of his arms was cut off. Some of the green men have been reported missing and one is in a coma, he is not expected to live. There is something rotting in Jimtown, something vile and evil, but what?
But that was a lovely way of remembering him!
