10 September 2015
Trigger: a series of well known titles
Much Ado about nothing
A pair of blue eyes
The longest journey
Great expectations
Engineering A Crime
The anger that he so carefully worked to control, boiled up from the depth of his inner soul. Once more he had to listen to that jerk Ramsey, prattle on, piling ignorance onto bigotry. With a supreme effort, Jonathon barely managed to choke back the words which were about to spew from his mouth by fixing a tight, closed mouthed smile on his face. His pair of blue eyes turned ice cold as an idea began to form in his mind, the perfect crime.
If anyone every deserved to be offed it was Ramsey. He bullied his way through the lives of all around him. His family connections and money had enabled him to avoid the strictures of civilized humanity under which most people operate. That was also the difference inside his narrow minded brain, he was not like the ordinary people. He had license to do what and when he wished. When problems arose, the family (and its well paid attorneys) always bailed him out. And since his father was the head of a large manufacturing firm, Ramsey had walked into a senior position with all expectations of taking over upon the death of his father. It would have to be upon his death as it was well known that the senior Mr. Jefferson would avoid handing over the firm to Ramsey as long as he had breath yet in his body. But that did not stop Ramsey from acting as if he were the boss and abusing all the staff, especially the female employees.
Jonathon, an industrial systems engineer, had worked his way up from the factory floor becoming an expert at figuring out how to improve production and save the firm money while improving the product. Mr Jefferson, was obviously smart enough to recognize Jonathon’s talent and brought him into the executive office. And it was there, that he began to have to interact with Ramsey on a regular basis. After a while, Ramsey realized that it was really Jonathon who made things work smoothly in the factory and gave the firm its reputation for quality and excellence in the field. He began to make sure that he was always at any meeting that Jonathon would attend. He would listen to any idea Jonathon would have and immediately make it his own In the name of controlling patents and work by the firm, Ramsey demanded access codes from all employees. It was just after that when Jonathon returned one night having forgotten a paper, that he found Ramsey, at his computer, reviewing his files.
Ramsey had risen in a huff as if Jonathon doing something secret proclaiming that it was his job to ensure that everyone in the firm was not taking on outside projects or selling out proprietorial information. He strode away telling Jonathon that he’d best watch out because Ramsey would have the corporate attorneys primed to review all his activity. Jonathon had sat late in his office that night deciding what he was going to do and realizing that with intellectual property laws in the firm’s favor, he was almost chained to stay at the firm.
Things grew worse from that moment. Every chance Ramsey had, he would belittle Jonathon before his father. And ideas that had come from Jonathon’s organized and innovative mind in the past, were now claimed by Ramsey as actually his. The final blow to Jonathan came when Liz, his longtime personal assistant came to Jonathan in tears. Ramsey had seduced her and then suborned her into giving Ramsey access to all of Jonathon’s work. Now she had become pregnant, and Ramsey was threatening to have her fired on morals charges and claimed it has been her idea to give him Jonathon’s work as a way to get to Ramsey and his money.
So how does one go about committing the perfect crime. Obviously, there can be no trace left on the body, or any complicity by anyone of involvement. Everything and everyone has to be normal, truly ignorant of the actions of the killer who also required the perfect alibi.. That left out hiring a hit man of a sort. It means you cant engage someone else, knowingly, in the perpetration of the crime. It means you yourself, can’t be linked to the death or have a discoverable motive. And certainly with a bully like Ramsey you can’t challenge him directly as he would yell to high heaven.
It would have to be an idea that would attract Ramsey to a place and time due to his arrogance and greed. It must seem to be a chance to make the big score that would show his father that indeed Ramsey was capable of taking over the firm in his own right. It would have to appeal to his own sense of great expectations of being the big man.
Jonathon began the long journey of developing and setting in motion the plan for Ramsey’s destruction. His first step was to find a suitable position for Liz at another company. He then let it be known that he was looking for a replacement in a meeting attended by Ramsey (who was not aware that Liz had told Jonathon the complete story of Ramsey’s abuse). As he suspected, several days later Ramsey came to his office with a recommendation of Rachael, one of the women who was a secretary on his private staff. He extolled her virtue and her ability. Actually Jonathon knew she had neither virtue nor intelligence, her only ability being attractive and complaint to Ramsey.
Jonathon welcomed Rachael nonetheless knowing that she was placed there to be a spy for Ramsey. As the weeks passed, he led Rachael to believe that he was working on a secret project, one that would radically change the manufacturing procedures reducing costs by half and doubling quality and output. It would make the firm billions he implied. Soon Ramsey began stopping by Jonathon’s office at all hours. He told Jonathon that he hoped that things in the past would be left behind and that he wanted to be a good colleague and help Jonathon in the future. As he entered, Jonathon would slide a piece of paper over the work on his desk, or switch screens on his computer, as if he were covering up something. It was subtle but observable to Ramsey.
This went on for a month as Jonathon waited to build more greed in Ramsey. Finally he told Rachael that he would be going to another city to conduct the research he needed to complete his project. He told her to not let anyone into his office while he was away and to ensure that his private passcode to the company mainframe was not shared with anyone. And in fact Jonathon did have a scheduled meeting with a supplier and took the first flight out of town the next morning, ensuring that his cell phone was on and he was being tracked. He called Rachel several times during the day to say that he was completing the project while away and that all would be done by the end of the day.
As suspected, the inside info flowed to Ramsey who waited until all had gone that evening. He told Rachael that they would get together later in the evening for dinner but that he had some last minute things to do at the office.
With his master code for all electronic door locks, he made his way into Jonathon’s office. He started up Jonathon’s computer and typed in the secret access code. As soon as he hit the “enter” button, a huge charge of electricity was sent thought the keyboard.
Later that night, the night watchmen saw a light on in Jonathon’s office with the door open. Looking in Ramsey was found slumped over the machine. A heart attack it was ruled.
A few months later, Jonathon’s new production plan was presented to the board. After its unanimous acceptance, Mr. Jefferson announced that he was making Jonathon his Executive Vice President, to replace his recently deceased son. It was only fitting that his son’s best friend should carry on the work of the firm. There were great expectations about the company’s future with Jonathon at the head. Jonathon’s blue eyes teared as he pledged to carry on in Ramsey’s memory. Some engineers know how to act as well as they can do.