Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide

The Dean of the McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts congratulates the person buying this book on taking their first step toward homicide, addressing the reader directly. A McMasters education in how to get away with murder has been too expensive for many years, and the Dean wants this book to provide an alternative option for aspiring murderers.

The mantra behind the school’s teaching includes four questions, also known as “The Four Enquiries,” which one must answer before moving forward: “Is this murder necessary? […] have you given your target every last chance to redeem themselves? […] What innocent person might suffer by your actions? […]Will this deletion improve the life of others?” (2-3).

This volume will follow the paths of three students from the 1950s. Not all were successful in their murderous endeavors, and names have been changed. One of the students, Cliff Iverson, was on scholarship and was required to keep a journal for their benefactor. Cliff’s journal entries are included as one the perspectives throughout the novel. Beyond the three students, one last narrative will be provided by Dean Harbinger Harrow. The reader will not have heard of any famous alumni because they are trained not to be caught. If you want fame, this is not the book for you. This book will, however, teach you the school’s ways, show you around the school, and give you philosophical insights about the frailty of (hopefully your enemy’s) life.

Cliff thinks he has planned the perfect murder of his boss, Merrill Fiedler, who is his supervisor at Woltan Industries, a company responsible for the manufacturing of airplanes. He is wearing a disguise of a padded trench coat, wig, beard, fedora, and sunglasses. He also wears gloves which are also padded so his hand size will be misjudged. He plans to push Fiedler into an oncoming subway train in Manhattan and rationalizes that he actually won’t be committing the murder. The train will be doing it. He sees Fiedler standing exactly where he needs and prepares to push him. As he prepares, he thinks of how Fiedler planted papers in his car to get him and friend Jack Horvath fired, and how Cora, the company’s inventory supervisor, is probably dead because of Fiedler. His worries about the people on the approaching train disappear as he pushes Fiedler. Without waiting to see the results, he walks into a nearby store’s changing room, leaves his disguise, and walks to his hotel.

He is barely in his room before his phone rings. The clerk is alerting him that the police are on their way up, and there is a knock at the door. Two men, Captain Dobson and Sergeant Stedge proceed to reveal they know exactly what he’s done. They say he is under arrest for the attempted murder of Merrill Fiedler, as he has survived. Cliff pretends to surrender but grabs Stedge’s gun. It’s empty of bullets but they say Iverson’s stealing it is another admission of guilt. This causes Cliff to admit his guilt and declare he has no regrets except that Fiedler didn’t die. The police officers astonish him by saying it’s the correct response. They reveal they are former police and won’t arrest him but instead are taking him somewhere where he will be better educated. They give him something to drink that will knock him out so that he won’t know the location of the school. Cliff realizes he has no choice and drinks it.

Dean Harrow describes how the deadly-looking gate around the school and the sign that reads “McMasters Home for the Criminally Insane,” are designed to scare off potential trespassers. Most students never see this entrance as they are blindfolded and taken on circuitous routes to ensure they don’t know the location. The estate was acquired and transported from an estate in Derbyshire to this location along with multiple outhouses including a chapel, Grecian revival folly, a mill house and wheel, stables, and more. After a 40-hour drive, Stedge gives a password-filled interaction at the gate’s entry box, and they begin to begin to unwrap Iverson’s blindfolds while they drive in.

Cliff’s journal states he has no idea how long he’s been traveling but when the bandages come off, he sees he is walking through a forest. He is almost hit by an arrow and notices a group in PE clothes following a bearded man holding a longbow. When he declares that he could have been killed, all the group laughs except one woman. The bearded man gives them instructions on the pluses and minuses of using an arrow for murder. The woman who didn’t laugh at Cliff has a mix of Caribbean and English accents and asks a question about what to do if one doesn’t have bow skills, which another student who looks like an “evil British prince” answers. The group heads away and Cliff hopes the pretty girl who didn’t laugh will look back at him, but she doesn’t.

Cliff continues toward the school. His first idea when he sees the main building of McMasters is “Toad Hall,” in reference to The Wind in the Willows. They walk into the Office of the Dean where Cliff waits until exactly three o’clock.

Dean Harrow sits behind a huge desk surrounded by photos of famous graduates such as Gene Autry, Danny Kaye, and Loretta Young. He makes sure Cliff knows what the school can teach him and reveals details about Cliff’s life that seem too intimate for anyone to know, including why he wanted to kill Fiedler. The secretary, Dilys, brings in sherry, and the Dean pours himself and Cliff a glass. The Dean tells Cliff that he doesn’t seem like a killer and says that if he promises never to try to kill again, they will return Cliff to his home and raises a glass to drink on the deal. Cliff says he can’t, and that he will kill Fiedler or die trying. He goes to drink and Harrow slaps the glass away, saying it’s poisoned and the proposed promise was a test. He explains once someone is at McMasters they can’t leave because they’ve seen the school. Cliff will now graduate or be deleted (their word for murder) himself. Dilys comes in to clean the broken glass and has textbooks for Cliff who will have to catch up as he is weeks late for the start of the semester. Dean Harrow informs Cliff that an anonymous person is paying for him to be there.

The Dean takes Cliff on a walk to show him the grounds. A young man drives up in an ice cream truck and offers them some. Cliff is about to eat his, and Dean Harrow again slaps it out of his hand. He compliments the young man, named Cubby Terhune, for his misdirection but reprimands him from trying to kill a newly arrived freshman. Cliff pretends to be angry at Cubby and swings at him, pretending to twist a weak knee and causing the Dean to get him the wooden cane Cliff noticed in the office. As they continue walking, the Dean explains they are financed by alumni donating to ensure the school’s security, which Cliff thinks can be reframed as extortion. They encounter a woman in a gown and opera gloves who explains to the curious dean that she is testing how the satin will affect her firing a pistol. Cliff thinks she looks familiar but can’t place her.

The Dean interrupts Cliff’s journal narrative to say that this woman called Dulcie Mown is actually the famous movie star Doria Maye. She found the lack of special treatment and lodging difficult when she first arrived and was dismayed she was so easily unidentified with basic changes in her appearance.

Cliff’s journal entry continues with Dean Harrow telling Cliff that an anonymous student will be observing him to report on his progress. They walk, observing teachers and students, particularly Gemma, the woman Cliff admired earlier fly fishing. Cliff is shown the market area and restaurants, and the Dean introduces the arrogant male student from earlier to Cliff as Simeon Sampson. The Dean asks Gemma to escort Cliff to Hedge House as he has another appointment. Gemma reveals she is English but spent time with her mother’s family in Tobago. Aside from this, she rebuffs Cliff’s attempts to learn more about her and leaves him at his dorm.

Cliff is planning to escape. In his room, there are clothes in his size in the closet and on his desk are a copy of the school rules, a letter from his Resident Advisor, a note about job opportunities on campus, and a schedule of meals and dress codes. The radio only plays Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto. Despite finding the room comfortable Cliff is determined to leave and goes back down the road he thinks they came in seeing very few students. He hurries and is soon at the gate. He uses the wood cane with the rubber base so as not to be electrocuted and reaches through the bars to press the intercom. He gives the codes from earlier in the day and they open the gate for him. Cliff runs. After a while, he hears a car coming and hides. It’s Cubby Terhune, who breaks down by the side of the road and begins filling the ice cream truck with gas from cans. Cliff picks up a branch and threatens Terhune, who admits the keys are in the truck. When Cliff gets in Cubby jumps in as well pleading for Cliff to take him since Cubby is failing and he thinks they will kill him. Cliff agrees.

Neither know what country they are in but drive knowing Stedge will be after them on a motorcycle. They pass signs in English and Chinese identifying a hospital ahead. They see Stedge behind them, and Cubby says he will continue driving to distract Stedge while Cliff escapes to the hospital to get help if Cliff promises to come back for him. Cliff agrees and Stedge continues chasing Cubby in the ice cream truck as Cliff runs into the hospital and interrupts surgery. He declares to the surprised surgeon and nurses that there is a school for murderers nearby and that he needs them to call the police. The patient sits up, as a surgeon, who is actually a professor, continues to speak to the room. Cliff realizes that observers are sitting around watching how a murder can easily be done in such an environment. The assisting nurses and surgeons take off their masks revealing Dean Harrow and Gemma. Stedge and Terhune walk in, having set Cliff up. Demoralized, Cliff does as he’s told and joins the class to continue watching the lesson.

The professor asks the student posing as another surgeon, a man Cliff thinks looks like a creepy clown, Jud Helkampf, how he would delete the patient. Helkampf’s idea doesn’t take into consideration the innocent bystanders, losing him point; his suggestion is also based on incorrect ideas about inheritance laws. Cliff, having experienced his father being in a coma, points out the incorrect legal assumptions in front of the class, earning him an angry glare from Helkampf. When Gemma gives her explanation of how she’d delete the patient, it is smart and efficient, but she declares she’d never do it as the results would damage the reputations of the doctors and the hospital and prevent people from getting good care. The class concludes and Cliff wonders if he is still a student or if he will be deleted for trying to escape.

Cubby Terhune tells Cliff that there are rings of gates with facilities set up like soundstages to allow students to practice deletions. He had volunteered to chase down Cliff to earn points with the overhead. Cliff accompanies the students back on a bus and is jealous when he sees Gemma sitting by and being friendly with Helkampf. As they walk from the bus to their dorms, Cliff catches up with Gemma and tries to engage her in conversation. He tells her he can’t imagine her killing someone, and she tells him she already has.

Dean Harrow is waiting in Cliff’s room next to a plate of food. He eats a sandwich to make Cliff feel better and assures him they won’t delete him on the first day. The Dean asks him the Four Enquires: First, if the murder is necessary. Then, has he tried other remedies? Next, will anyone mourn the victim, and finally, will the world be better off without them? Cliff says yes to each, during which the Dean says Cliff has passed. The Dean adds that the best way to leave McMasters is to graduate. Cliff reflects he has been alone most of his life and that his unknown benefactor has given him an opportunity that is a small miracle. It is a chance to rid the world of Merrill Fiedler.

Dean Harrow flashes back to Gemma watching Adele Underton, an administrative executive of St. Ann’s Hospital where Gemma works, be honored for a mobile clinic program that was Gemma’s. Adele’s action convinces Gemma to apply to a school her father’s cousin said helped her move on to a new life. As she sits down later to fill out the application, she answers the First Enquiry with the sentence “Blackmailer shouldn’t be allowed to live” (86).

Doria Maye is furious about being forced to wait for her appointment with studio head Leon Kosta. When he lets her in, he shows her a role that she loves and that will help her career, and then burns the script in front of her. He tells her that since she slept with a writer on the last set and wouldn’t sleep with him, he is going to destroy her career by only offering her parts like a talking pig in a children’s story involving a spider. As she angrily leaves, the secretary hands her a card for McMasters.

Cliff Iverson writes to his sponsor about his first day at McMasters. His advisor has explained that he needs to create a projected thesis by answering the question of what the motivation and justification is for his intended deletion. Cliff flashes back to three incidents. The first was warning his boss Merrill Fiedler about the production modifications Fiedler made, which would create fatal flaws in the W-10 airplane on which their company was set to start production. Fiedler was unconcerned, saying a few planes would have problems and they could offer modifications to fix the problem for a fee. Cliff argues that people will die, and Fiedler’s response is to disgrace and fire Cliff and his dear friend, the propulsion engineer on the project, Jack Horvath. The second thing was that Cliff is certain Fiedler is responsible for Jack being found dead, shot in the heart in a park. The final incident that convinced Cliff that Fiedler needed to die was the suicide of Cora Deakins, the company’s inventory supervisor and a woman Cliff was just beginning to get to know. A drunk and angry colleague revealed that Fiedler had shown him pictures of Cora naked and was now transferring him because he’d seen the photos, and that Fiedler’s habit was to transfer or move out anyone who knew too much about him and to use his power to get what he wanted from his employees. Cliff writes that these reasons seem more than enough for Fiedler’s deletion.