Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide

The faculty are debating if students are ready to leave McMasters, and the argument about Gemma turns into a debate of educational philosophy between Dean Harrow and Assistant Dean Erma Daimler, who thinks it would be more profitable to focus on exactly the skills a student needs for their deletion while Dean Harrow thinks a broad range of knowledge is necessary. His best point is that if they teach multiple skills or theories and one is used by the student to murder someone, they can’t be held responsible whereas if they teach a single method that is used in a crime, they can be convicted as accessories to all the murders students commit.

They return to Gemma not having money for another term but worry her compassionate nature and unsound plan doesn’t set her up for success. However, her excuse for being away from work, that she needed maternity leave, necessitates she be back. The board is more confident about Dulcie Mown, who they think will have no problems. They also agree that Cliff is ready, particularly as he was showing feelings for Gemma. Another problem is Helkampf, who they see as a failure due to his problematic and impulsive behavior which is the opposite of what they try to teach at McMasters. When asked how he was admitted, Daimler awkwardly says he didn’t have an in-person interview due to his living in a difficult place to access—the city of Metropolis. Dean Harrow insists another board member help Daimler read applications of those who aren’t able to do an in-person interview to weed out such students. Coach Tarcott offers to help Dean Harrow deal with Helkampf, but the Dean wants to handle it himself.

Gemma sits on the couch of Vesta Thripper’s office getting a pep talk from a concerned Thripper who has grown to like her. She becomes drowsy and wonders if she is being deleted and if she’ll see her father, who she killed, when she wakes.

Jud is welcomed into the Dean’s office and is told he will have to pay for Cliff’s death financially later when his deletion is successful but also now by either constructing Cliff’s coffin or creating an urn. He is escorted to the sub-basement where the ceramics kilns are housed and is never seen again.

Cliff starts a second required journal for his sponsor upon waking in his home and reading a note from McMaster with instructions and an alibi for being gone. He begins to recreate the plans for the W-10 airplane, making extra notes to warn against the problematic changes Fiedler chose to employ so anyone reading them would see the danger Fiedler created.

Gemma spends time with her Tobagonian-English mother in her childhood home, reminiscing about her father and visiting happy sites of her childhood, remembering how he was in so much pain at the end. When she returns to the office at the hospital Adele is annoyed that Gemma left her to do work and reminds her that there is an envelope with letters stating the truth at a lawyer’s office if Gemma chooses to escape or harm Adele. Gemma knows she will have to find and destroy those letters as her first step in her deletion.

This chapter is from the master’s thesis deletion report of Leonid Kosta by Dulcie Mown, aka Doria Maye. Upon return, Doria greets the guard at the studio, Finny Flood, and goes to Kosta’s office to plead for her studio-based bungalow which Kosta has taken over to entertain female actors. Her alibi for being gone is that she has been traveling the world and writing articles for Collier’s magazine, and Doria informs Kosta that she has scheduled a farewell interview in that same bungalow in a week. She will either announce being kicked out of her home in Hollywood or say she is bowing out and Kosta has kindly let her use her old home for a few weeks as she moves on. He gives her a month.

Cliff Iverson is disguised in a memorable way so the teller at the racetrack will remember him. He places an outrageous wager, placing bets on all the horses running in races three, four, and five telling the concerned teller he has a system.

Gemma befriends the secretary of the lawyer where Adele has secured her extortion letters. She gets the girl to tell her about the company safe and how the chemistry loving boss has posted a periodic table over it. He has a habit of forgetting the combination but remembering it by the time he walks across the room to the safe with his face held upward. After taking the secretary out to dinner, Gemma fakes a need for the toilet and the secretary offers the office’s bathroom. Gemma turns her back but hears clues to where the key is hidden and learns there is no alarm to the building.

Cliff muses that he had some surprising winners in his field of bets, which is lucky. He goes to Fiedler’s apartment building disguised as a lost delivery man to learn the door attendant’s name and memorize the number on the phone in the lobby. He buys a portable typewriter from a pawnshop and types a letter to Fiedler, placing the three winning tickets of that day in the envelope with a letter and sends it to Fiedler’s work address. The letter tells Fiedler that while he doesn’t know it, Fiedler has saved the writer’s life. The writer, signing as “Amigo,” wants to replay him by leaving him winning tickets from the track where he works and where he has figured out a winning system. Fiedler must cash the tickets within a week. Amigo will expect half the cash back but the balance of the winnings is in thanks. He will call the phone in Fiedler’s lobby at 8:30 am to specify where the tickets will be left each day. Cliff knows Fiedler likes easy money and is sure he’ll fall for this plan.

Gemma returns to the empty lawyer’s office with a replica of the envelope Adele had used for the extortion letters. She finds the key quickly and goes in. She uses her McMasters knowledge to figure out the type of combination on the safe and then sees the periodic table above it. She recalls that the secretary says the lawyer always looks up and says he needs an element of luck before he remembers the combination of the safe. She spells “luck” on the periodic table and gets the corresponding numbers, successfully guessing the safe combination. She substitutes her harmless envelopes and letters for Adele’s.

Cliff writes in his journal that he goes to visit Jack Horvath’s widow, Liliana, who had become like replacement family for Cliff. She is furious at Fiedler and says he didn’t send a card of condolence but rather a $50 check made out to “cash.” She gives it to Cliff, who says he won’t cash it. He looks around Horvath’s den and they talk about the park in a bad part of town where Jack was killed, and Cliff feels guilty about his relief that Jack didn’t die by suicide, as it would hurt Liliana. He is, however, confused why Jack went to that part of town. Liliana suspects he was drunk, but Cliff had never known Jack to be a drinker other than a single glass of Unicum in the evening. He asks Liliana if she needs anything and she says she is fine but asks him what he needs. He asks for a bottle of Jack’s favorite liqueur with which to toast him later. The encounter makes Fiedler’s murder feel even more justified to Cliff.