The Pancaking of Mr.Arrow
By: Yueyang Jiang
March 26.11
Hi, I’m Matt. Matt Clover. I work as a detective with my best friend, John Tether. He does the research and the interrogation, and I do the clue hunting and the solving. Usually my cases don’t involve crazy lunatics who pancake people, or a limbless man writhing on the floor, but sometimes there’s that tiny exception.
You see, John and I were enjoying our morning breakfast that day. I was reading the newspaper when something grabbed my eyeball and whipped it around to look at it; another person missing, Jennifer Smith. You’d think that the police would maybe reconsider their strategy when people start going missing every month. Suddenly, we got a call from a William Orlando. He said that he needed my detective skills to solve a recent mystery. I told him to meet us and the deal was set.
The next day, William knocked on the door and we let him in. He was a chubby, well-dressed man. He sat down on the chair and began talking.
“Good day to you. I’m William Orlando, a successful author and editor in the United States. I’ve come to address a certain…situation.” He said.
“You see, I’ve recently been donating quite a bit to charities. I came across one called A Drop Of Water, which seeks to help kids in third world countries gain access to fresh water. A man named Randy Arrow started the charity back in 1996, and so far it’s been absolutely booming. According to multiple sources, Randy is allergic and afraid of many things, and rarely comes out except to have a meeting with-”
“Cut to the chase, bub” John said.
“I just want to know where my money went. He hasn’t contacted me in a while. Tell me, and I’ll reward you with some money. Got it?”
“Got what?” John asked.
“Never mind, just tell me where my money went.”
Once the idea of money got into his puny mind, John’s eyes gleamed. We quickly accepted and he gave us an address: 666 Dallas Road; ADOW’s base of operations. We decided to go clue hunting the next day, and went to bed trembling with excitement.
The next day, Randy Arrow was dead. It was all over the newspaper, the TV, and the radio. Randy Arrow dead, killer ran him over with a truck, private funeral and burial, A Drop Of Water out of business. Although our biggest lead was flat on the ground, we decided to go to the base of operations anyway. We met up with his secretary, Phoebe Cheese. Now we had to find out why someone would kill him.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” she asked.
“We’re here to investigate the pan caking of Randy Arrow. I presume he is your boss?” John said.
“Oh, yes. It’s such a tragedy. A Drop Of Water is going to shut down without the help of the best man in the business. We’re already laid off and we’ve started packing up already.” She said.
That was such a heartbreaker . John and I then decided to interview the next in command, Gregory Willow, Randy’s best friend and business partner.
“Hello, I’ll assume that you’re Gregory Willow then?” John said.
“Ah, yes.” He replied.
“Very well, Mr. Willow, can you tell me what shenanigans you were extirpating on the day of Randy’s death?”
“You see here, I was at my house, brushing my teeth. Randy never liked to go outside, because he had pretty much every type of phobia you could imagine. I’m still baffled as to how he could’ve crossed a street without looking both ways. He was one of the most paranoid you could ever meet.”
We got nothing from the interview. Now we went onto our next choice: interrogate the killer. The killer, Barry Jordan, was a nervous wreck. We found him at the insane asylum, and the nurse there led us to his cell.
“Here you go, but don’t try to ask him about the murder. He goes strikingly pale every time someone mentions it.” She said.
We entered the room and found the chubby, bald, rapidly shivering man sitting on a chair. John began his interrogation.
“Are you Mr. Jordan?” he asked.
“Y-y-yes.” Barry replied.
“Good. Now, I’d like to know what you were doing at the night of the murder, you fragrant testificate.”
Barry turned pale.
I nudged John to remind him of the nurse’s warnings, but he didn’t listen.
“C’mon man, don’t be scared. I’m just trying to flatten the leads and-“
Barry looked like he was about to throw up.
“Don’t vomit buddy. We just need to run over a couple-“
Barry started shaking unceremoniously.
“Chill out. This case should be easy, Randy Arrow is pan caked, and you’re the one who squashed-”
Barry instantly jumped out the window and splattered onto the pavement below. We both looked down in horror and the mix of flesh and blood.
Because of John’s dilapidated interrogation skills, we were at a lost again.
What do we do now?
Later that day, we visited Randy’s gravestone. Randy Arrow, 1973-2012. Died of a truck accident. One of the hardest working men on the planet. Why would someone want to kill him? Was it an accident, or was he pushed? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a strange man staring at us. He was wearing a long coat and a fedora. I couldn’t make out his face. I assumed this was just an ordinary fellow here to visit his dead relative or something. No clue as to where the money went yet.
The next day, we found out another lead. Thomas Frederickson, a local mechanic, was a witness to the crime. We visited his shop. That certain car shop was one of the worst places a human being could step foot in. Imagine walking into a room with rotting flesh in every crevice, and maggots and flies and other unpleasantness hovering about.
We opened the door to his office and were confronted with a grisly sight. I don’t want to tell you the details, so let’s just say that he could use a limb…or four…and a whole lot of blood.
We called the cops and soon the car shop was taped off. Now we set off to the next witness; a certain Shawn Griffin. Problem is, we had no idea where Shawn was. We eventually found out that he worked at the morgue, which was pretty unnerving. I hopped into my car and we drove to the city morgue.
The morgue looked like it was the child of an old, crusty, pathetic house and an evil mastermind. The windows were cracked, and it looked like it could turn into an evil creature at any moment. I noticed the same strange man that we saw at the cemetery. I rubbed my eyes, and he darted off. John cautiously opened the door. We went inside.
Eventually we spotted Shawn at his office. He was sleeping; or so we thought. Maybe it was the rotting flesh, or maybe it was the four inch knife hole in the back of his head that gave it away, but we found that he was dead too. Probably by the same guys who killed Thomas.
We spun around to leave when suddenly we heard a loud smash. A man wearing nothing but black came up to us with a knife. I had a feeling that things were about to get real bad real fast.
The assassin lunged at us; I ducked and rolled away. John went and grabbed a chair. The assassin stabbed at John, but he used the chair to block the blade. I quickly searched for a weapon. There wasn’t any in the vicinity, so I decided to give him the ol’ one two. While John was distracting him, I went up behind him and punched his skull so hard it was like using a wrecking ball to crumple a piece of cardboard.
He fell to the floor and we ran off to call the cops. Soon he would be interrogated and hopefully we’d find out who hired him. It was a regular day at work, witnessing an eviscerated, limbless man …finding a dead guy at the morgue…bashing the head in of a killer. Now we just need to find out, why was the killer killing the witnesses to the killing of a killed man whose killer was recently killed by the killer himself?
Later that day, we interviewed the landlady at the apartment in which Randy lived in. Her name was Kelly Weird. How strange.
“Alright ma’am, what’s your name?” John said.
“Weird.”
“I’m sure it is, but what’s your name?”
“Weird. Kelly Weird.”
“I..Uh…okay, if you say so. We need some information regarding Randy Arrow, who was recently pan caked.” By now you would’ve thought that pancake was John’s favourite word.
“Well, Randy was a fairly nice man, even though I never met him. He had a fear of apartments and it was Gregory who had to book the room for him. He and Gregory lived together and Gregory always took care of him. He was never late on his payments and remained quiet for most of the day.”
Seems legit; Randy was always afraid, paranoid, and all that razzle-dazzle.
“Can you tell us some of his information?” I asked.
“Sure. He was born on June 31st, 1973. He was raised in Nottingham, England. His full name is Randy Astor Desmond Arrow. He first rented this apartment 2 years ago. That is all.” Kelly said.
We came up with nothing out of this interrogation. Now we were lost once again. We asked to see his room.
Kelly led us to Room Number 13. We looked inside. Everything was fairly tidy for an apartment, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was dust gathering on the closet, a half-eaten apple on the counter, and everything was in place where it should be. Randy had died only 1 and a half days ago. There really wasn’t anything to work on so far. We ran out of leads.
Since we were now screwed, we needed to find even more leads. We decided to go hunt for information regarding Randy. We found out that his company was competing against a man named Jason Marov. It turns out that A Drop Of Water and Marov`s charity, Invisible Children, were fierce competitors. Marov lost out, and he became a regular office worker, trapped in a cubicle. We quickly found and interrogated Marov at his office.
“So, Mr. Marov, you plump clockwork pineapple, can you tell us what you were doing on the night of the murder?” John started.
“Yeah,” Marov had a deep, jagged voice. “I walked into a bar and had a drink.”
“You walked into a bar? That’s got to hurt,” John said.
Marov looked at him with a confused look.
“Ummm…Do you know anything about Randy Arrow?” I asked.
“He’s a terrible man. You know why he’s “afraid” of everything? It’s all a scam. He’s a fluke. His shenanigans earned him millions. He barely donates anything and if he does, he supplies the children with fake, low quality water purifiers that work for about 2 drops before the kids choke and die. He pockets all the money. Personally, I’m glad that he kicked the bucket.” Marov snarled.
“Randy kicked buckets?” John asked.
“Ya don’t say.” I replied.
“What? I said it!” John said.
I ignored him and let Marov go. Randy was a fluke? But how? We had no proof. Marov hated him anyways. Randy seemed pretty nice. He spent his entire life trying to make things right. We still don’t know where the money is though. I decided to head on to the base of operations and ask Gregory and Phoebe some more questions.
When we got there, most of the employees had left. Gregory and Phoebe were still there, much to my pleasure. We sat them down and asked them a few questions.
“Alright, you crab infested tangerines, time to make you talk.” John snapped.
Phoebe looked at him with a confused look.
“So, Jason Marov says that Randy Arrow is a fake. He says that you guys don’t donate any money and the little that you do, it’s always low quality tomfoolery. He says that Randy isn’t actually afraid of anything; he just remains undercover and pockets the millions of dollars. He also said that Randy kicks buckets.”
“But…we have proof! Look at all the happy children in the pictures!” Phoebe protested. She pointed to the single, lonely picture of a child happily drinking water.
“BAH HUMBUG!” John shouted. Some of the leaving employees stared at him.
“But we have records of his illness, and his birth certificate, and all that jazz!” Gregory said.
“He plays jazz music?” John asked.
I’ll have to admit, what Gregory said was true. Gregory supplied us with everything we needed to know, from his medical problems and his birth date, we knew it all. He even agreed to show us how much he had in his bank; five hundred dollars, not much. We were now lost once again. The money completely disappeared. This case was proving to be quite difficult to solve. But then I remembered the assassin we encountered at the morgue.
“Do you know of any corporate assassins?” I asked.
“No, of course not! A charity like us would never do such a thing!” Phoebe said.
“You would never play jazz music?” John asked.
This just increased my suspicions even further.
“Well, we were attacked by one and the police have him. He’s going to be interrogated soon and if he says that you guys hired him, then I’m afraid you two are going to jail.” I threatened.
Gregory looked angry. We left the building and contacted the police. The interrogation starts tomorrow.
The next day, we arrived at the police station. The assassin had a bandage on his head, and looked rustled and fatigued. We began our interrogation.
“Well, aren’t you a silly Willy Wonka.” John began. By now, you can figure out that John isn’t very good at insults.
“Tell me, you lubricated bicycle, what’s your name?”
“Dimitri Gregorvich” the killer replied, with a voice as cold as steel.
“Sounds Russian. So, Mr. Gregorvich, who hired you to kill us?” John inquired.
“That information is classified.” He replied.
“Yeah? I’ll bash you three ways to Sunday you cheese smuggling zedonk!” John threatened.
“Umm…what?”
“Let’s just say that your avocadoes will be turned into guacamole. Capiche?”
Dimitri gave a confused look and John face-palmed. I took the lead from there.
“What he’s saying,” I said, “Is that your eyes will be brutally shot with a nail gun and blended and given to you for you to drink. Understand?”
Unfortunately, he still refused to talk. I brought out the nail gun. His eyes widened. I handed it to John, with a crazed look on his face. John suddenly brought up the nail gun and shot it, with the nail missing him by an inch. Dimitri agreed to tell us everything. Nailed it.
We sat the gun down and untied him. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack at any moment now.
“Who hired you?” John said.
“Oh, that’s easy. The name of the certain organisation that decided, one day, to allow my services is…what the heck is that?” He pointed behind us.
We all looked back, before we realized he had tricked us. Suddenly he lunged for the nail gun. The police officer pulled out his pistol, but it was too late. He raised the nail gun and pumped himself full of nails. I really could’ve gone the day without seeing a human pincushion. We went outside to get some fresh air and to rid the smell of blood in our noses. When we got outside, the same freaking man was watching us from a distance. He quickly ran away.
There has got be to some connection with the clues we`ve found, but what? A Drop Of Water is almost fully closed, and who was the weird man watching us at the cemetery and the morgue and the police station? There was something strange about this. We went back to the charity base of operations. Phoebe was behind her desk.
“Say, where’s Gregory?” John asked. He was right. Gregory was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, he came in.
“Sorry, had a little meeting to attend to. What do you want?” he asked.
“The man we screwed around with pumped himself full of nails.” John said.
“That’s terrible!” shouted Phoebe.
“Before we call the case unsolved, we need just a bit more interrogation. We need Randy Arrow’s relatives, friends, schools, et cetera. Understand?” John said with a very threatening tone.
Phoebe went to get his documents. While she was gone, I interrogated Gregory.
“Say, Greg, when did you meet Randy?”
“22 years ago. We were good friends through university. We decided to collaborate and start up a charity.” He replied.
Suddenly Phoebe came back with a bunch of papers. We took a look at them.
Apparently Randy was born in Nottingham, until the age of 18, where he took his chance and came to London. He started university at the age of 19, and finished with a Master’s degree in Business and Finance. He didn’t need a loan as his parents, Beth Arrow and Mason Arrow were upper middle class, working as a teacher and a lawyer. That was it. We went back to the police station and I had John do some paperwork. When he reported the facts to me, suddenly the truth dawned on me. I called Gregory and Phoebe.
“Meet us at the amusement park tomorrow, 12 o clock sharp.” I said.
“Clocks are sharp?” John asked.
I ignored him, I was too excited. I had figured it out. They were going down.
The next day, me and John met Gregory and Phoebe at the amusement park. We bought tickets for a ride through the lake. We got in, and we started talking. The boat entered a tunnel. We were flushed with darkness.
“What is this madness?” Gregory said.
“You see, you two were quite clever. Randy Arrow never existed. There is no June 31st. You couldn’t have met him 22 years ago, he wasn’t even in London yet. The mystery man was you, Gregory, watching over us so that way you knew what we were doing. That’s why you came in late when we went into the building. Randy was a distraction. He only had 500$ in his account, a bit low for a CEO right? You placed the money there. John here checked your bank accounts; 50 million dollars split between the both of you. That’s where the money went. You hired the assassin to kill the witnesses. Randy was afraid of everything, so that was a good excuse to keep him secret. His closet was untouched, with dust gathering on it only a day after he died. He didn’t even have grandparents and Beth and Mason never existed. And the person who died and was put into a coffin? It was the missing lady, Jennifer Smith, whom you pushed into a truck to frame Barry. You two kept it private so nobody would find out and you can pocket all the profit. You two are going to jail and we’re going to tell the cops.” I said. John just stared at me, wide eyed with his mouth open.
“Oh, really?” Phoebe said with a creepy smile. She nodded at Gregory. Greg pulled out a small one shot pistol from his pocket. Phoebe cast a look of disappointment, stuffed her hand down her bag, and pulled out the biggest 16 barrelled pepperbox pistol I have ever seen and pointed it at us.
“Don’t move. Put your hands up.” She snarled.
“Do you want us to not move or put our hands up?” John asked.
“How about you say your last words and I’ll kill you two here and now?”
“PANCAKES!” John yelled.
Right at that moment, we exited the tunnel. There were 20 SWAT team agents all armed with assault rifles, pointing at Gregory and Phoebe. A police helicopter was circling the scene. Surprise, buddy. I called the cops beforehand. It was all a trick and they fell right into the donut hole.
“You’re going to jail you gypsy tentacle licker!” John sneered.
Phoebe and Gregory gave John a confounded look.
The cops grabbed and handcuffed the two and we got a hefty reward from the cops to help crack this case. They then checked the coffin. It was a completely flattened Jennifer Smith, her organs pushed out of her mouth. It was a fairly gruesome sight, and John lost his lunch.
We then went to tell William Orlando the good news. It was a good day, and another case solved.
“Let’s hit the road.” I said to John as I opened the door of my car.
“Why would we want to hit a road?” He asked.
Oh, John. Sometimes I wonder how you passed kindergarten.
How's that for a first story?
