Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction: “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique. This is the final installment; you can read prior installments here.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
The loud whack-whack-whack of a helicopter blade caused John, the detective, and Katarina all to look up. It was the police. Someone downstairs had called, Katarina thought excitedly.
“You’re going in for questioning. One way or the other, you assaulted this guy with a poison frog.”
The helicopter landed on the roof.
John panicked and looked over the edge. No sign of Dick. He grabbed his rolled tent and quickly looped its ropes around his body. As John jumped, the detective marveled at how he had made it into a parachute — but it wasn’t effective enough for such a sharp drop.
John landed, but did not move. Clever, but not realistic, thought the detective as he called 9-1-1.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Departures and Denouements”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
The detective hid with Katarina just out of sight, listening, hoping to overhear a confession. But once he realized John intended to poison Tyler, he decided to step in, one way or the other.
“Hold it right there,” he said.
Instantly, he saw he was too late. A golden leg squirmed between John’s glove and Tyler’s mouth.
“Honestly, officer, there’s no need for the gun anymore. The killer is incapacitated. In fact, he’ll be dead in a matter of minutes. There’s no known antidote for batrachotoxin.”
At that, Katarina sprang into action. She e-mailed everyone in the office: “Trapped on MakoProphet roof with Ken Thrax’s murderer! Call police!”
Katarina looked at the time. It was 12:05 p.m. She texted Alex, who regularly got sushi takeout for lunch. “Going to O Bento today?”
He responded immediately: “There now — why?”
“I need you to get me something….”
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Explanations and Escapes”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
“Now, Dick, go back to your office before anyone notices you’re gone. In exactly fifteen minutes, you will leave for a client meeting. You will bring with you anything from your office of value that fits in your briefcase. I will clean up here and meet you out front. We will go to the Colombian embassy, and from there, leave the country for a month. You will explain your absence by telling your secretary that you are checking into rehab — which, by the way, I highly recommend. The other partners are anxious enough for work that they’ll happily cover for you. If the frame sticks, and it is safe to return, we’re back in a month. If not, we’re safe on foreign soil.”
“How will we get into the embassy?”
“Oh, I spent one of my college summers in Colombia working to teach indigenous peoples about sanitation. One of my friends from that is the ambassador now. That’s actually where I learned how to handle poisonous frogs.”
Dick smiled and shook his head admiringly.
“Speaking of which, Dick, I trust you disposed of that little piece of evidence once you missed your chance to plant it in Thrax’s office?”
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Rooftops and Rumpuses”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Tyler hit the “send” button on his e-mail draft to Carol. He knew his career at the firm was just as dead as Ken Thrax. He wondered how long he had. Days? Weeks? He had no idea what to do next. But he had a sudden empathy for John Tiburon. He decided to go up and thank him for the help on the memo. Fortunately no one was in the men’s room when he climbed up to open the ceiling tile.
As he reached the trap door to the roof, he heard voices yelling. One was Tiburon.
“You idiot! All you had to do was get back into Thrax’s office once his body was discovered and clean that one lousy key before the police started sweeping the office. Your office is just down the hall, and it would have been so natural for you to be first on the scene. It was the perfect crime! Totally untraceable! You plant the frog, and it’s a bizarre freak accident. How could you ruin everything?”
“I’m sorry, I guess I got distracted.”
“Distracted with a bottle of Scotch, more like. Did you muck something up with a client? Is that why Thrax wanted you out?”
“Of course not. I’d never let my, er, hobbies interfere with work.”
“Well, it wasn’t the sexual harassment scandal. We all know you can beat that. You’ve never been interested in a woman in your life.”
Schlosh! Tyler thought with alarm. Gay and an alcoholic? The things he missed by preferring Asimov to office gossip . . . .
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Legends and Legerdemain”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Katarina, intrigued by Tyler’s phone call, spent a few moments researching batrachotoxin. The poison, produced by phyllobates terribles from South America, is highly deadly, killing a man on contact with only as much as the weight of a few grains of salt. The poison has no known antidote.
She also looked up John Tiburon. A high-level Justice Department appointee, Tiburon had resigned after he had been televised — and identified by name and position — in the audience of a gay marriage rally at a time when the administration was taking a strong line in favor of traditional marriage. He had never revealed his sexual orientation at the office, and he hadn’t sought the publicity. But he had been unhirable for any traditional firm or government position after that.
She kept reading. Tiburon’s biography mentioned that he spent time in Colombia working for the Peace Corps. The Golden Poison Dart Frog, she had just read, is indigenous to certain parts of Colombia.
Curious, she walked down to Thrax’s office, where the detectives were testing for traces of the poison.
“How was he poisoned?” she asked, standing carefully outside the yellow caution tape.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Constables and Clues”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Tyler slowly awoke to the sounds of the drones coming to work in the hive. He dragged himself to the men’s room, looked at the closed ceiling tiles with a smile, and straightened himself up. He planned to read his draft again, give it to Carol, and go home to get some sleep.
On the way back to his office, he saw Mark.
“Have you heard? Thrax was poisoned!” he said.
“Poisoned? How?”
“The medical examiner found batrachotoxin in his bloodstream.”
“Batracho-what?” Tyler asked.
“Batrachotoxin. The stuff in the skin of poison dart frogs that makes them poisonous.”
“Weird. Was there a frog in his office?”
“They’re in there now, checking everything for traces of the poison,” Mark replied.
“Hmm. . .” Tyler said sleepily and staggered back to his desk. He had to send that draft.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Beetles and Batrachotoxin”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Despite his experience on construction cases, Tyler knew very little about actual construction. But he was fairly certain a rope ladder going up two stories to the roof was not standard for office buildings. He reached the top, pushed open a trap door, and climbed out onto the roof.
Not twenty feet away, Tyler saw a small tent and a rather well-dressed man sitting in it. He sat cross-legged, working on a laptop computer.
The man looked up. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Uh, who are you?” asked Tyler.
“Name’s John Tiburon, attorney at law.”
Tyler gasped. “John Tiburon? The John Tiburon?”
“The very same.”
John Tiburon was a MakoProphet legend. Class: God who walks among us. Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, clerked on the United States Supreme Court, published an article he wrote as a student in the Yale Law Journal, and argued in every federal appellate court in the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court (more than once), by the time he was thirty-five. And he had never lost a case.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Prodigals and Prodigies”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Back at the office, Tyler said goodnight to Katarina and returned to his desk. He checked his e-mail while he ate his sashimi. CLE presentation on electronic discovery. Maintenance on the air conditioners tonight. Recruiting event next week at Carol’s house. He marked his quest calendar accordingly. Post-lunch summer associate evaluation form from Mark. Tyler completed it perfunctorily.
Firmwide announcement regarding the death of Ken Thrax. Standard Corporatica chronicling his achievements, condolences to the family. Information on funeral services to be announced as it became available. No mention of cause of death
Tyler looked at the clock. 8:30 p.m. He sighed, pulled out his pile of cases on parol evidence, opened his document, and got to work.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Partners and Parol Evidence”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Katarina grabbed her oversized purse and tossed a long red scarf around her neck. Tyler noticed a copy of Atlas Shrugged peeking out of it. Alignment: Libertarian. And geeky. Only true bookworms manage to slog through all 1000+-pages of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus.
“So what kind of law do you want to practice?” Tyler asked as they walked. He groaned inwardly for asking such a stock question.
“Litigation, probably appellate,” she replied. “I’m especially interested in constitutional questions.”
Tyler sensed a liberal arts background and good grades in law school. “And what was your college major?”
“Archaeology. I have my master’s degree in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology from the University of Chicago.”
Precisely, thought Tyler.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Sushi and Succubi”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
The elevator opened again, and a flurry of blue uniforms quickly surrounded ken Thrax’s office and began marking it with yellow tape. Class: Fighter.
Tyler was a thinker, not a fighter. He left quietly, not wanting to get involved, especially if that yellow sticky note was one of Thrax’s last acts….
Tyler went down the hall to Katarina’s office. He spotted her head amongst the piles of books and case printouts. She was so engrossed in a volume of Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure that she hadn’t even noticed his entry. He smiled.
Tyler rapped lightly on the doorframe. Katarina jumped. “Sorry,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Want to get dinner?”
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Death, Detectives, and Defibrillators”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
The author, a former appellate lawyer, wishes to emphasize that any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except for the geeky stuff. Appellate lawyers really are that geeky.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Back at the office, Tyler reached for his case file. A yellow Post-It note on top read “Drinks at 5 p.m. Solstice. K.”
Tyler instantly e-mailed Katarina one word: Yes.
Then he noticed an e-mail from the managing partner announcing cuts in the recruiting budget. No reimbursements for associate lunches with summers. The firm has, however, negotiated a deal with Solstice such that all recruiting meals eaten there and paid for by corporate credit card are still fully reimbursable up to $7.00 per person. Tyler groaned audibly. Having to eat well-presented-yet-unflavored food every day was his personal hell.
An e-mail from Katarina appeared! His heart pounded as he read her reply: “?” He read it again and mentally administered severe self-flagellation for a divination attempt gone badly awry! Tyler wished vainly for a time reversal spell to recall that e-mail. Seeing none, he instead replied, “What is the answer to which the question is ‘dinner tonight?’” He crossed his fingers.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Fainting and Failing”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.
The author, a former appellate lawyer, wishes to emphasize that any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except for the geeky stuff. Appellate lawyers really are that geeky.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
The waiter’s arrival with their food gave him a few moments reprieve. Mark and Alex had cheeseburgers with dill havarti and fries served in a tall silver cone with a trio of condiments: ketchup, barbeque, and honey mustard. Katarina had a chicken caesar, but with the chicken strips stacked like Lincoln Logs. What nonsense, thought Tyler. Then his pepperoni pizza arrived — in five small round pizzettes stacked vertically at one-inch intervals on a braced skewer.
“Leaning Tower of Pizza, get it?” the waiter asked. Katarina laughed. Tyler was not amused, however, as he now had to eat this edible architectural marvel politely in front of his co-workers.
As Tyler mentally debated the question of hands v. utensils, Spencer walked up with his own lunch entourage. Class: New Partner. Intelligence: High. Top of his class at University of Virginia. Charisma: average. Alignment: Hard work. Spencer had no time for alignments. He was too busy billing. Experience Points: ~3500? Spencer had been a rising star since the day he set foot in the firm as a summer associate, and no one was surprised when he made partner the first year he was up.
Spencer skipped the usual round of introductions and went straight to Mark. “Veronica’s suing the firm,” he said grimly.
Veronica, Tyler knew, was an associate who had recently lateraled to another firm after learning she was unlikely to make partner. Standards were higher in this economy. Class: 7. Experience points: 2200/yr, but low Intelligence. Charisma: Above average. She wasn’t Tyler’s type, but he knew her reputation among the firm’s bachelors.
“What, she didn’t make partner because she’s a woman?” asked Mark.
“No, she’d never make that shtick. Sexual harassment. By Dick Schlosh.” said Spencer.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Lunch and Lawsuits”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. The first chapter appears here; please read it first.
The author, a former appellate lawyer, wishes to emphasize that any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except for the geeky stuff. Appellate lawyers really are that geeky.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Tyler headed down to the firm lobby to meet Mark and the 2L summer associates: Katarina from Harvard and Alex from University of Chicago. He knew Mark would want to go to Solstice, the trendy new restaurant in the basement of their building. Mark was efficient like that. Experience Points: about 2700/yr, very respectable.
Tyler hated Solstice. Overpriced, overpresented, and underflavored. But the name, he thought, was fitting. Every day in this building was the longest day of the year.
The elevator reached its destination with a bit of a thud. Mark, Katarina, and Alex were already waiting for him. Mark waved him over. “We were just thinking of going to Solstice,” he said. “Sure,” said Tyler, suppressing an eye roll.
He had met Alex before. Class: Summer Associate. Level: 1. High Intelligence, moderate Charisma. Experience Points: perhaps 50? Alignment: Lawful good. He had quickly developed a reputation as an incredibly nice guy.
And then there was Katarina. Class: Sorceress! Level: 1. Clad in the standard 2L-clone-just-bought-lightweight-wool-dark-suit uniform. But summer associates were well advised to stand out for their work quality rather than their appearance, so her choice probably indicated decent judgment. Something about her, however, exuded a certain geekiness.
“This is Tyler. He also went to Harvard, and then he clerked for Judge Pyrrha on the Fifteenth Circuit.” Mark broke in helpfully.
“Oh, I heard her speak at Harvard last year on the original understanding of the Ninth Amendment. She was amazing,” Katarina replied.
Alignment: Libertarian.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Solstice and Summer Associates”
Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks.
The author, a former appellate lawyer, wishes to emphasize that any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except for the geeky stuff. Appellate lawyers really are that geeky.
Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.
Tyler got onto the elevator and pressed the button marked 13. As the doors closed, he looked down at the golden manacles that signified his position as an associate. He must survive the tower another day, he thought. Only 657 more days until he paid off his student loans — that is, if he stuck to his budget. Until then, Tyler must serve out his apprenticeship as a squire to the knights of the realm, ensuring that the knights had the proper weapons for jousting with opposing counsel.
He reached his sparsely furnished cell in the law offices of MakoProphet, a D.C. appellate boutique, and turned on his +6 vorpal laptop. Tyler had a tendency to let his imagination wander. He scored high on Intelligence and Dexterity, but less so on Strength and Charisma. Tyler had spent — or rather misspent — the better portion of his youth immersed in fantasy fiction, various strategy games, SimWhatever, or some combination of the above. He tended to view the world in game terms. It helped him break down the complexities of real-life interactions into understandable bits to compensate for his obvious lack of social skills.
Tyler’s voicemail light was blinking. It was a message from his secretary, Jill. The firm’s travel office wanted him to fly from D.C. to New York through Cleveland in order to use some preferred airline. He imagined Jill talking to Patty and Selma from The Simpsons. Class: Bureaucrat. Level: Five. Hit Points: About a million. Bureaucrats were generally impossible to kill and not worth the effort. Better to work around them. He had his secretary research alternatives.
Continue reading “My Job Is Murder: Of Confinement and Contracts”
