“Hi, Joyce!” I smiled when I heard Susan’s bubbly voice.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Well, I think something strange is going on at work…”

“Really? Hold on a sec while I get settled.” Susan is my closest friend, but she tends to live in her own little world. If she noticed something…well, this was going to be interesting.

I put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and looked around. The kids were playing on the Wii and Mark was on his computer. I grabbed a glass of wine and settled myself on the sofa.

“OK, shoot. Why do you think something’s strange?”

“Well, I think the shrink wrap was the first clue,” she said.

“What was wrong with the shrink wrap? And why did you have shrink wrap in the lab?” Susan worked for a local biotechnology firm in their research department, spending the day experimenting with exotic plants.

“I’m not sure why it was there. I guess it could have come wrapped around the new shipment of Morinda citrifolia that we got in yesterday, or was it the day before, no, I think it was – “

“OK, it doesn’t matter. What was wrong with it?” Sometimes it’s hard to keep Susan on topic.

“I don’t think anything was wrong with it, technically. But I thought it was odd that it was wrapped around Ned’s head.”

“Around his head? Like a turban?” I asked. Ned was Dr. Ned Calafran, Susan’s boss.

“No, more like seaweed wrap. But not as green. And it definitely wasn’t doing anything for his skin.”

“Oh my gosh! Is he all right?”

“I cut it off immediately, but I was too late. I can’t say I was surprised – I’d never seen his lips that particular shade of blue before. They kind of reminded me of a Centaurea cyanus.”

“A what?”

“A blue cornflower, sometimes called a bachelor’s button. Did you know they are the national flower of Estonia? They represent – ”

“Forget the cornflowers, Susan. What happened to Ned? Was it suicide?” I had never thought of bio research as a particularly stressful job, but he was working with Susan…

“The detectives thought so, at first. But then I asked if many suicidal people tie themselves to office furniture.”

“He was tied up? And they didn’t notice?”

“I think they were distracted by the hole.”

I took a big sip of wine as I processed this new piece of information.

“What hole?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? There was a whole in the wall. A big one. I think somebody took a sledgehammer to it. But probably not the same person who tied up Ned. Whoever tied up Ned was very careful – it took the firemen 17 minutes to cut him loose. But the person with the sledgehammer wasn’t careful at all. You wouldn’t believe the amount of dust that was everywhere! Have you ever seen the inside of a wall? I was amazed at all of the empty space – ”

“Susan!”

“Oops, sorry, got distracted. But it was a mess.”

“Why was there a hole in the wall?”

“Because. The. Safe. Wasn’t. There. ” Susan said this sentence very slowly, as if I was a young child having trouble keeping up with the conversation. I took a few more sips from my glass.

“So let me get this straight. Somebody broke into the lab, tied Ned to the office furniture, strangled him with shrink wrap, then tore the safe out of the wall?”

“Yep. I told you that I thought something strange is going on.”

“Why would they take the safe? Did you have some kind of secret formula in it?”

Susan burst out laughing. “No, of course not! I would never have locked anything in there. It wouldn’t have been safe from Ned.”

“Ned is stealing from the lab?” I was considering getting a notebook to start taking notes.

“Not anymore. But he was. Until about 1:30 today, according to the coroner.”

“But if you didn’t put anything in the safe…what was he stealing?”

“Oh, I was putting stuff in the safe,” she said airily.

“What?” I asked.

“My favorite recipes. I put them in manila envelopes, sealed them and marked the outside Top Secret. I wanted to have a backup copy in case my kitchen ever caught fire. Remember the boiled egg incident?”

I did. And I let it slide.

“So how are they going to catch Ned’s killer?”

“They already did,” she answered.

“How?”

“The police said something about them carrying the safe down the street because it wouldn’t fit in their car. But I’ve seen stranger things, so I’m not too sure why anybody noticed. ..”

“Is Susan OK?” Mark called.

I smiled to myself as I finished my wine. How did I answer that question…

Sarah gave an exasperated sigh. Lunch was on the table, and Thomas had disappeared into his workshop in the basement as usual. Well, there was nothing to be done except go down and get him. When he was working on inventing something, he never heard her call. She couldn’t complain too much, some of his inventions paid the rent and then some. But when money was not a problem, he really went off the deep end, and right now, it wasn’t a problem.

She started down the stairs, calling first, and getting no answer as expected. When she got to within three steps of the bottom, everything went black. Not that she blacked out, just there was a complete absence of light, of the kind one usually would expect deep inside a cave. She felt her way back up the stairs, two steps up it was light again. She decided calling more insistently was in order, and did so. Eventually Tom answered.

“Did you want something dear?”

“Just to tell you lunch is ready. Can you see well enough to get to the stairs?”

“Well, of course, Tom said, turning his invention off. Come down and take a look.”

Sarah, wandered down, stopping at the fourth step, took a deep breath, and moved forward. Thankfully, everything was normal. On the work bench was what looked like a 42" LCD television. Sarah knew better, but lunch was still waiting, so she stifled her curiosity for a bit.

Between bites of lunch, she asked, “So what is this one about?”

“I have found a way for electricity to make darkness”, Tom replied.

Sarah thought about that for a minute. “You know what this reminds me of? The time you made an invention to shrink-wrap the furniture . You claimed it would save us a bunch of money on new cushions for the couch.

“And it would have too if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I stopped you because mother was sitting on the couch when you decided to test it. It took us a week to extract her from the wrap.”

“Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that,” Tom grinned.

“Well I haven’t. And I have the divorce lawyer’s name and number on file if this one turns out the same way. Mother STILL will not visit us since that day.”

Tom grinned again, inwardly this time.

“So what is earth shattering about this invention anyway?” Sarah asked.

“Before, you needed some mechanical contrivance to block the sun. My invention can do it in open air, during broad daylight.”

“Big whoop,” Sarah thought. “So what is the practical application of this?”

“Well there are plenty of them. Movie theaters for example.”

“There seems be methods of darkening them already,” Sarah pointed out.

“Drive-ins?” Tom asked.

“Why would you want to... never mind. I was in that field of yours, remember, I couldn’t see any light. So yeah, it will block out the sun, but I couldn’t see the screen either, could I?”

Tom was about to speak, then thought about it. “Hmmm, how about catching a foreign agent stealing your secret formula ? He sets off the trap, and *boom*, suddenly no light. You can capture him at your leisure.

“Um, yeah,” Sarah admitted. “Doesn’t seem like much of an application though.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. Outside were some military brass.

“Is this the Edison residence?” the head one asked.

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“We are looking for the man that contacted us about inventing a NED

“A what?” Sarah asked her husband.

“It needed a catchy name. It stands for ‘Night Emitting Diode’.” he explained.

“We were told you have a working prototype,” the General said.

“This way sir,” Tom said as he led the way to the basement.

The General, attending officers and technicians followed. The General stood behind the NED screen with Tom, while everybody else stood in front, and the technicians set up their equipment.

When they signaled their readiness, Tom turned the NED on. He and the general could see the others, they could not see them. The technicians tried Infra-red vision, still nothing. Radar got through however.

“Excellent,” said the General. I assume we can test it in broad daylight.

“Yes sir.”

“And what would you need to cover say a square mile?”

“Around six of these, 6ft x 6ft in size. You could run them from vehicle batteries, they do not take much power.”

“Mr Edison, we are prepared to offer you $3 billion for this system.

“BILLION?” Sarah thought, then rushed off to call her friend Anni before someone thought of telling her not to. She got Anni’s husband instead. “Have I got a story for you! Yeah, it is about a Ned.”

My curiosity over what was said between my wife and the town gossip last week has been sated. I’d only caught a few words at the time, but it all made sense after reading the following article, which made page one in our local paper:

“Mortician Indicted for Fraud. Ned Bury, owner of “Bury’s Graves” funeral home, appeared in court on Friday to answer charges that he had bilked thousands of dollars from the grieving relatives that sought his services. It is believed that at least one of his pallbearer accomplices will turn witness against him.

An anonymous leak from the district attorney’s office apparently has Ned saying “I got the idea when I saw a little boy stealing a lollipop from the local drugstore”. Then he further supposedly explained “Not his stealing! Heavens no, it was the lollipop. There was just something about the way it looked in that cellophane wrapper. All nice and shiny”.

What, you may ask, is going on here? It seems that Mr. Bury devised a plan to save the trees. At least that’s what we are led to believe his defense will be. It looks like the only real coffins at the funereal home, are the six display models. Ned would get you to pick one of those for your loved ones burial, then make a switch after the viewing was over.

His formula for success was the old “bait and switch” magicians trick. Anyone in the room would be distracted by something happening at one end, while the pallbearers would lower the coffin into a hollow space below the curtained table. The new “coffin” would be moved in and the corpse relocated. This new coffin was nothing but a cardboard shell that had been expertly painted, then had a shrink wrap applied. This gave it a lustrous gloss affect that could fool anyone that didn’t get too nosy. In fact, this reporter was told that these coffins resembled nothing less than fine antique furniture. That’s how good a job he did.

What enabled these shams to work as real coffins, were three U-shaped wooden poles that the body would rest on, and that had ends painted to look like the handles on the original coffin. Since the only ones that would be touching these would be the pallbearers, nobody would be wise to the fact that they weren’t the real thing. They were apparently made of lumber taken from demolished building sites. Nothing like saving a penny, especially since it seems the cardboard he used came from the trash receptacle area behind the local mall. We are not sure, but it may be he got the shrink wrap from the local butcher’s shop (the owner of which says he thinks he had been shorted on a few shipments).

It is possible that no one would ever have gotten wise to this scheme, if not for Mrs. Noseybody. Known locally as the town gossip, she regularly attends funerals, weddings and any other event she can get into. She may no longer be considered just a nuisance at these. She is the person responsible for getting the police involved, which finally resulted in Ned’s arrest.

Mrs. Noseybody explained that she had attended the funeral for Mr. Miller (late owner of the local pub “Miller’s”). When she went up to view the body, she said she accidentally nicked the coffin with her engagement ring. She thought it was of no significance, since the coffin was just going into the ground anyway.

When she attended the funeral of Mr. Burntree (late owner of “Burntree’s Eatery”), she was curious at the nick she saw on his coffin. She thought at first it must just be coincidence, until at the grave site she could no longer see the nick.

It all came to a head at Mr. Hopehard’s funeral (you may remember him as the local door-to-door salesman). When she saw a nick on his coffin, and then none at the grave, she went straight to the police. Though reluctant to believe her story at first, the police went with her to “Bury’s Graves”. When she showed them the nick on a coffin there, they immediately went to the cemetery. They were able to stop Mr. Hopehard’s grave from being filled in completely, and discovered what had taken place at least that once.

After warrants were obtained, Mr. Miller and Mr. Burntree were exhumed. What little remained of their fake coffins was taken into evidence. All three individuals received reburial rites at the state’s expense. (Cont. On Page 3)”

They’re on the phone again. I wonder what they are talking about now? Caught the words Sharon, drunk, accident, railroad and bank. Hm, maybe there will be something in Next Sunday’s paper?

"Oh, hi Ned ," My wife said, picking up the phone just as I entered the door. I shut the front door quietly and stealthily pushed open the door in the kitchen to see my wife sitting in a chair, facing the opposite wall and twiddling nervously with the phone cord.
"No, no, he's not home yet. I can talk now," she said into the phone, leaning back and tilting the chair casually on two legs lazily. I quickly closed the door as quietly as possible and with the minutest of clicks, it was closed. I hid behind it to listen to her conversation, which I clearly wasn't supposed to hear, despite the fact I had my ear pressed on the door to make sure I did. There was a short pause.
"Ned, you're being ridiculous-" she said, sounding rather annoyed and almost frightened. She listened to him speak for a moment and I heard a clunk of her chair tipping forwards and falling back onto all fours before she hissed a reply at him.
"I thought we agreed to never mention that again!" She paused "I don't care how much shrink-wrap it takes, just deal with it and leave me alone!" she had gotten up and started pacing the room. I couldn't help but realize this was really not something I wanted to know, but my curiosity was piqued. What on earth could Ned, whoever he was, need shrink-wrap for? To be honest, I'm not even quite certain what shrink-wrap is.
“Look, we agreed I wasn’t going to be in charge of this, you are! I don’t want to deal with it any-” he cut her off and she stopped to listen to him. “No, I don’t have to deal with anything! It’s your problem, not mine!” Now this was the wife I knew, always trying to shift the blame on to someone else. I smiled to myself and pressed my ear harder to the door.
“Alright, alright, it’s our problem, not yours, happy?” she said, sounding defeated and angry after listening to him for a few seconds. I wish I could hear what the mysterious Ned was saying, but the phone extension was upstairs and I didn’t want to chance her hearing me walking up the steps to pick it up. I’d just have to deal with the one-sided conversation.
“Yes… yes…” she was mumbling to him, and then she giggled softly. “Ned, you’re gross. You can’t do that with the furniture just because your inflatable little friend got deflated.” I nearly choked on my own tongue when she said this. Where had the seriousness of the conversation gone?
“No, of course I’m not coming over right now, I guess you’ll have to make do with the armchair,” she laughed again as she listened to him talk. “Don’t be silly, my husband’s going to be home in not too long. You’re not stealing me away from him” I pressed my ear so hard against the wooden door so hard I thought I might break it off the hinges. Was she cheating on me with Ned? And what was Ned intending on doing with an arm-chair?
“Oh, you’re silly, can’t you just wait until our weekly appointment? You know I save every Saturday night for you.” I gasped and then bit my tongue. She told me that she was taking a Cooking Class on Saturday nights! She laughed.
“Okay, look, I’ll tell him it was switched to Friday night, as long as you make sure you’ve got the formula straightened out now- I don’t want to be turning green again.” She listened to him for a moment. “Yeah, I know, but for you I’m willing to get wet.” I had heard enough, I crept away from the kitchen and loudly closed the front door. I heard her hang up the phone quickly and come out of the kitchen looking mildly guilty.
“Hi, honey, how was your day?” she asked me, with a forced smile.
“Good, good, I replied,” with an equally forced grin to match. “Yours?”
“Oh, it was pretty boring. Oh, my cooking class is tomorrow instead of Saturday, just so you know.”
“Cool…” I replied distractedly. “Listen, honey, I’m pretty beat from work, I’m going to go take a nap.”
“Oh, alright,” she replied, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll just talk to you later then. Good-night.”
“’Night,” I replied, walking upstairs. I could feel her eyes burning a hole in my back with every step I took.
~*~*~
Meanwhile, at his place, Ned was simultaneously fixing the shrink wrap around the edge of his radio on the pool deck, along with everything else he didn’t want to get wet incase there was another… incident, checking the chlorine levels in his pool so they didn’t go too low again and re-inflating his blow-up chair, ready and eager for his next swimming lesson.

It was a foggy morning in Nettingville two days before Christmas. I was rearranging the furniture into a circle so I could host my annual logic club. The annual logic club was a get together that I had invented a few years back so my old friends and I could have fun doing the thing we all do best.

Murder mysteries.

I was moving the couch when Ned Lettermen walked in early, like he always does. "Hey, what are ya doin'?" He said in his New York accent.
"Just about to break my back,” I replied as I strained to move an oversized ottoman into the middle of the circle.
"Want me to help?" he asked as politely as possible, witch wasn’t polite at all.
Knowing how klutzy Ned was and being concerned about my heath, I sent him into the other room to get the food. “They’re shrink wrapped on the counter.” I said.
Unfortunately, the china plates I put the food on where probably more valuable than my health. A crash and a “oops” came from the kitchen as I ran in expecting to see a pile of pineapple on the ground spilling out of a broken china plate held loosely together by a meter of shrink wrap. I was right, except the pineapple turned out to be strawberries, now there was a red stain on my vinyl floor.

An hour later, half of the group’s members had shown up and where talking to each other in bold British accents. But Ned was the only one who was sitting alone on one of the chairs, arms crossed. Seeing him, I went over to talk. “What are you doing, sitting around like a lazy lump?” I asked him as politely as I could say it.
“I thought this was going to be a logic club, not a British accent festival.” He grumbled.
“Why don’t you talk to anybody? Perhaps if you get to know the people you’ll feel more comfortable.”
“All right.” He got up, but it took him a while because he was a little large.

A few minutes later, every member was in the room and we where about to read some ‘Who Dunn It’s’ out loud, when Ned spontaneously picked up a spoon off the food table and tapped it on a Champaign glass. “Excuse me,” he said when he got everyone’s attention, “I have a riddle for everyone.”
All of the members perked up and looked over to Ned. “I know of a formula , a formula of success! ” He stood up and everyone in the room followed him with their eyes. “It’s not illegal to have, but it is to steal . It’s green and when you use it, it can change. If you have a lot, you succeed. But if you don’t, you fail. Think about this and when you find it out, tap a glass and tell the group.” And with that, he sat down.

2 hours later, after reading through 5 books and having a long discussion about evidence and the involvement in a mystery, nobody figured out the riddle Ned told us. By the end of the meeting – which took about 3 hours – nobody had figured out what the answer to the riddle was, and much to everyone’s disappointment, Ned wouldn’t say what it was. Everyone started to leave the room and get their coats in the hallway. One by one, they left and sometimes if two people where locked in a conversation, they would leave together. By 10:30, everyone but Ned and I where gone. I thought to myself that Ned was always coming early and staying late, but unlike other times, I was glad he stayed because I could ask him the answer to the riddle. “So,” I started, “can you tell me the answer to the riddle.”
“Um, no.” He looked at me with a grin.
“Ok, you can take home the leftovers.”
Ned’s eyes lit up and I knew the answer was coming. But a few minutes after we packed up the meat and cantaloupe, I knew he forgot. “So,” I started, again, “how about the riddle?”
“Oh, ya,” he exclaimed after he finished putting his jacket on, “Look in your back pocket.”
But before I could reach he was out the door and running to his car. I took out my wallet and opened it up. There, sticking out of the leather pocket was a 5 dollar bill. “The formula” I mumbled as I put the wallet back, making note about Ned’s misguided nature.

If today got any worse I think I would have to go home, eat chocolate ice cream, shut myself in my room, and push my heaviest piece of furniture under the doorknob. I woke up this morning in a great mood, ready to face the day with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. It all changed as I left the house and walked by my neighbor Ned’s house. He was working on his Formula 1 car, getting ready for the big race, reviving his engine and giving the whole neighborhood a headache. The day didn’t get any better as I was late for work because of a car accident on the only road into work. As we waited for the tow truck to remove the wreck I asked the man in front of me what had happened. He said that some kid had been caught stealing a car and there was a car chase with the sheriff. Finally, 20 minutes late, I walked into my office space where a note was left on my computer reminding me that the all-important new client meeting had been changed from 9 am to 8:30 am and it was now 9:20 am. Walking into the meeting my boss shot daggers at me as I crept to my seat. As I was the lead jingle person for a new ad campaign for a new client I struggled to get a grip on how the meeting was heading. The client and all my co-workers turned to me and asked me for my brilliant, mind-boggling, awe-inspiring, sexy, stick-in-your-mind jingle. Do you know how hard it is to make a jingle about “shrink wrap?”

There once was a fella named Ned

Whose formula for fun it is said,

Was Stealing Furniture with Fred,

his friend... the nutty pothead

When caught with their hands red,

They turned and immediately fled.

And were found on a stolen daybed,

Suffocated by shrinkwrap over the head.

So, take heed from our friend Ned,

And remember the moral of what you've just read.

Hang out with guys who smoke the reefer like Fred

And you most certainly could end up as Dead.