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My Little Mystery

"Cricket was the epitome of pure evil, yet she had two flaws."

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There was a small town in upper New Jersey named Fort Lee. It nestled quietly under the George Washington Bridge. It was not very big, but it had a long and varied history from the American Revolution until today. I didn't know of many famous people from there, but there was one infamous person, who was born there, and lived there after a varied, and checkered past.

That person was a young woman named Marcia “Cricket” Shaw. She was petite, with straw blonde hair, piercing hazel eyes, a cute piqued nose, and a very skinny figure. She could be classed a 'carpenter's dream' because she was average height, and weighed less than 100 lbs. soaking wet. She looked, as if, she could be blown over by a stiff breeze off the river.

What made Marcia so infamous, was not her cuteness, but just the opposite. She was pure evil. Her parents knew this from an early age, and sent her to various boarding schools all over the United States. She could not stay put in any school. There was always something happening to make her at the center of any evil being done. She just loved making trouble for anyone who got in her way.

Her parents spent many hours bailing her out of scrape after scrape. They gave up trying to make her a nice person and proceeded to find the toughest, cruelest boarding school in the world. It turns out there was an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland that took in evil children. No one knew what happened to them but they were taken there.

In her junior year of high school Marcia was bundled up, and sent off to the Bard School for Children. Unbeknownst to the families and the children, they would never be seen again. This school was a special school where the basics of Math, English, French, German and Science were taught, but also the skills needed to become a top ranked assassin, bomb maker and forger. With these skills it was very easy to assume any identity, travel the world, and slip in and out of places unnoticed. These well trained people were in great demand the world over by criminals and governments for assassins and bombers.

Marcia who will be called Cricket from now on did not like blowing things up or even killing people. She enjoyed slipping into a town or city or country and stirring up the political climate to topple the government. Sometimes she would ruin an election or destroy a company. She was good at fabricating lies and deceit to twist people's hearts and minds. She was known to crack a joke about the fact that the Boxer Rebellion was started by a 'sexy' French Poodle. Of course everybody knows that this is just a rumor.

Cricket entered the Bard School as a junior. She quickly mastered the assassinations and bombings but she was not happy. Even though these attracted attention, the real fun was spreading evil throughout the world. Evil was like a disease that spread from one place to another. Once started it was hard to stop. It was also hard to find the person who propagated the whole mess. Cricket became a master of slipping into buildings and planting false papers that would implicate someone in an evil plot to overthrow the government. Governments were easy to topple but companies were more fun.

In school, there was a group of students who were cheating on all the exams. They would break into the headmaster's office steal an exam and copy it. A select few of the group got copies of the exam. One girl who worked hard to maintain her average was going to rat out the group. Cricket was not a member of the group, but was hired to ferret out the rat. She did that, and the rat was punished. Her leg was broken, and never healed right. To this day she walked with a pronounced step. From the time Cricket turned her in, this girl had a grudge to settle with her. Through school, this girl tried to best Cricket at every turn. Cricket, being who she was, beat her every time.

Cricket was good at industrial espionage. She would find a weak executive, and exploit him or her until the latest product had been given to the competition for release before the inventors. This would make Cricket very happy. She got a lot of money by exploiting the weaknesses of man. She seemed to hate powerful men. She enjoyed taking the most powerful men down in a pile of rubble. All of these little excursions were practice runs for when she graduated from Bard School.

In order to graduate, she had to establish a completely new identity, which could not be broken. The only way to build a good cover is to establish a history for credit and purchases. This took time and patience. By time, it meant years of established residence, cars, church, and credit. Cricket knew this and began her work when she entered school. By the time she was a senior, she had a fully established alter identity. When she graduated from Bard School, she was firmly established as Emily Truesdale from Scarsdale, Long Island, New York. She had a home, very modest at 12 rooms. She had a Bentley, A Rolls, and a Mercedes. Her net worth was somewhere over 5 million dollars. On paper her assets were over a billion dollars. She was popular in many social circles, but remained a recluse. She was one of those people who shunned the news print, but still seemed to be doing good.

Cricket graduated at the top of her class far ahead of her rival runner-up, the girl she turned in. Her scores, in the academic tests, were the highest ever achieved by a student at Bard. Her other test scores in assassinations, bombings, and forgery were also off the charts. This girl was the mark, all other students would be measured against in the future classes. She was the epitome of pure evil. She was cold, cruel, heartless and some said, she had no soul. What no one knew was, that Cricket had one major weakness. It was so uncharacteristic of her, but it did lend a bit to her perception of being evil. She loved wolves especially white wolves.

Her estate on Long Island looked, to the outside observer, to be surrounded by tall growths of hedges. In reality these hedges were a combination fence and cage. For roaming the estate, was a pack of pure white wolves. They were kept in by the hedges, which wrapped a fence. This was the one vice, where Cricket was her weakest. If there was anywhere in the world, where wolves were threatened, the foundation Cricket set up would come in, and protect the packs of wolves. No one knew, that Cricket ran this huge foundation.

Although most of the businesses Cricket ran were a bit on the shady side or down right illegal, the foundation was completely legitimate. It protected wolves world-wide. Cricket had set it up as a complete not for profit foundation. It generated enough revenue to cover all of its financial needs. It did not rely on outside donations or fund raisers or any way to make money, that required interaction with the public.

One day Cricket was at a meeting in the boardroom of a major Wall Street Company named Wolfs-head Oil. Cricket objected to this company, because it used the head of a wolf as its logo. She thought that was a degradation of the wolf, as an animal and species. She vowed to take the company down or take the company over. Roger Wolfson was the current head of the company. He was a late thirty something man interested in making as much money in the oil industry. His family started the business in Texas during the early oil days by wildcatting wells in the heart of oil country.

Cricket had met Roger at a couple of gala Broadway play openings and he disgusted her. Her skills, as an assassin, would be useful to eliminate the Wolfson family, but that would not kill the business. She wanted to kill the business, rather than the family. As a person Cricket liked Roger. He was handsome and loved animals and protected The Wolfson family name strongly from all assaults. Cricket wanted to take down the business. That was her strength, and Roger was her weakness. Every time she met Roger, her knees got weak, her heart raced, her palms sweated, and she became tongue tied. She could never explain why this happened.

Her wolf foundation started slowly buying up all the outstanding shares of Wolfs-head Oil. Unfortunately only about 45% of the shares were available on the open market. The rest was held by the Wolfson family. All Cricket needed was to get 6% of the remaining stock to control the company. Having control, meant she could start to take it apart, and destroy it. When Cricket was buying the stock she discovered that Roger held 15% of the stock. She now had her target to start her take over. Her sights were set and moving in to focus on the stock that is held by Roger Wolfson and taking the company down. She will do it to further the cause of her wolves.

It seemed that after several weeks, Roger was too prim and proper. There were no chinks in his armor, no way to corrupt him into selling his stock. His life was solid. He did not play around. All his dealings were above board. Even the Wolfson family, was just as good as he was. It seemed that no one could find the loose thread to unravel his past or future. Cricket was growing more desperate, as the days wore on. She was running the show from behind the scenes, so nobody got wise to her. If she could not find something to crack him, she would have to manufacture something, but what?

How do you bring down a man or company that seems perfect? Is there someone or something that is there? Who can do it? A strange thing was happening to Cricket. She was falling in love with Roger, and getting angry, because she is losing at a game, where she controlled the rules. She had never been in this position. She was lost, but not for long. She remembered a couple of her classmates from school, but could not remember their new names, and she could not call the school to get them, as all records are destroyed in their old names. She was stumped.

She was in New York City one day, walking down Fifth Ave. She noticed a familiar gait on a person in front of her. It turned out it was one of her classmates. Unfortunately, this classmate was one Cricket had burned getting to the top of the class. Cricket hoped, she would not remember the incident. Cricket followed the woman for a few blocks until, she went into a coffee shop. She bought a coffee and sat at a table with her back to the wall, looking out at the crowd. Cricket entered the shop, bought a tea, and walked to the table of her classmate. Her classmate looked up and smiled, bade Cricket join her. After exchanging pleasantries, Cricket got down to business explaining her plan and need. Her classmate saw an opportunity to make a lot of money and elevate her skills to be like Cricket.

In the back of Cricket's friend's mind was a plan to get total revenge on Cricket and bring her down too. This was going to be easy now. She had Cricket where she was vulnerable. She can hatch her plan as time went on and Cricket will never know until it was too late. Her friend was no friend at all, but a future stumbling block to complete success. This was going to be fun.

The first thing they did was to get her friend a new name and set her up in Wolfs-head Oil as a high level manager. Once that was done, they started to chip away at the structure of the company. Looking at the accounting procedures that were in place, it looked pretty sound. However after injecting some shady deals and some corrupt offshore contracts, the company was bleeding. Nothing that was done could be traced back to Cricket or her friend. It all appeared to be coming from foreign points. The house was losing its foundation. Cricket was happy. The company was bleeding capital, and the only way to shore it up was to liquidate some of its assets. Roger Wolfson was having to sell some of his shares.

Cricket approached Roger at a business meeting one day, and asked if she could take him to lunch. They went out, and Cricket was a different person. She was confident, assured, totally in control. Through lunch, they talked some about upcoming plays and openings and a little about business. Roger was telling her, how he had to sell some of his shares, about 7%, to get the company back on track. In Cricket's mind the wheels were turning. How does she get his stock without sounding too excited about it? Will he sell them to her to hold until the company gets back on track, after which he will buy them back? She had a way, but it was risky. She would put up some of her own money, to stake Roger. This would expose her involvement and her money. That is something she never did in the past.

Roger had gotten to her. She was under his spell and she was losing control. She was no longer the evil lady of Wall Street. She was slipping. She knew it, but thought it was just a fluke. It would work out in the end, and she would win the whole company. Cricket did not see what was coming. She had purchased the stock, and was now in control of the company. With the help of her classmate, the company was still bleeding money. Cricket was happier than she had ever been. She had never taken down a multibillion dollar business before. To her, this was a very exciting time. She lost focus of Roger, and the immediate day to day life of the company. As the bleeding continued, the overall health of the company was spinning out of control.

Cricket saw it coming, but was powerless to stop or slow it down. The company was dying. Not only was Roger losing his money, but Cricket was losing hers. Try as she might, all the safeguards she had in place were failing one by one. It was taking her down too. Her classmate, however was making a lot of money betting against the company, and against Cricket.

One morning, Cricket walked into Rogers office to give him the news, that the company was going down. She found, that Roger had stayed at the company all night long, and early in the morning he had died from what appeared to be a massive coronary. Cricket discovered the body, and was there, when they took him away. Instead of being glad she had beat the company, she was distraught and heartbroken. She made Roger take his life to prevent disgracing his family and company.

This was the end for Cricket. She looked around at what was left, and threw up her hands and started to cry. She had never cried over a deal that brought about the destruction of a company. Roger really had gotten to her. She was a different person. She vowed to fix the company, and rebuild it, to restore it, to its former glory. Maybe she could resurrect the memory of Roger Wolfson. She knew just how to get it back too. All she had to do was expose the dirty tricks done by her classmate. That should not be hard. She knew what was done, and could lead the authorities to the guilty party. Her classmate was about to be discovered for who she really was, a fraud, and a con artist. This way Cricket gets to look like a hero, and come out without any witnesses to the real crimes. Her evil ways will remain intact.

Cricket spent two weeks lining up the evidence of wrong doing and implicated her classmate. As the Securities and Exchange Commission moved in, and arrested her classmate, Cricket was given a huge reward, and restored the company to its former power. She got rid of a classmate who had been a thorn in her side, renamed the company, and collected a huge amount of profits. Everything worked out as Cricket wanted, well almost.

The mystery as, she discovered was that her emotions, which she thought had been buried many years ago, were still close to the surface, and could cause trouble for her, and anyone who got close. She looked around, and saw that she drove this whole scene herself, and it finally turned out the way it should.

Her wolves had been defended, and she came out way ahead financially. Her reputation, as an evil influence, was kept completely intact. She proved that love does not always win, but evil can triumph.

Published 
Written by frogprince
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