Murder Can Be A Badly Timed Business

Mysterious Murder Under Investigation; Suspicions Fall On Millions

New York (AP) A dramatic murder investigation is underway in the heart of the Big Apple, after one of the city’s biggest landmarks became a crime scene. Times Square, the commercial intersection serving as ground zero for thousands of revellers on New Year’s Eve, is now closed off during a police crime scene investigation, after what police describe as a scene out of the introduction to the television show Blindspot, which featured Times Square becoming a crime scene because of the dumping of a live person.

The body of a lone man, shot in the chest 23 times, was dumped in the Square in the early hours of Friday morning, at some point between two thirty and two forty five. “We’ve been combing traffic cams,” NYPD spokesperson Callie Evers told reporters. “That time of night, the square’s not as busy as during the day, obviously, but no one saw how the body arrived. We can confirm however that the victim has been positively identified. Um, his name is... his name is Daylight Saving Time.”

An odd name, to say the least. Time legally changed his name four years ago from his previous name, Edgar Wallace Kazowski. The fifty four year old electrician, described by friends as “a social drinker” lost a bet on a Rangers hockey game and was legally obliged to change his name to whatever the winner chose. “I was the one who won the bet,” his cousin Harry Kazowski confirmed to reporters at his home on Staten Island, seeming distraught. “I mean, I’m a Devils fan, big time, and he was a Rangers fan. We made this crazy bet over one lousy game, and he lost. I knew how much he hated changing the clocks twice a year, so it seemed natural to make him change his name to Daylight Saving Time. We were always messin’ around and pulling jokes on each other, but come on, if I’d known his name mighta gotten him killed, I’d have never gone through with it.”

While police continue their investigation, experts have already weighed in on the case. Criminal psychologist Elizabeth Lamont mused on the specifics of the killing from her offices at Columbia University. “Shot in the chest twenty three times. That is significant. We lose an hour out of our twenty four hour day when we set our clocks back each year, which on a side note, is rather irritating. Hence twenty three bullets, twenty three hours. What I believe we’re looking at is someone with a particular hatred of daylight saving time. An obsessive hatred that runs so deep that they would kill someone by that name. I’m sure the police have already considered that, but if they want a consult, I’d love to help. Writing up a profile on this killer would give me enough material for my next book. I’m thinking of calling it Temporal Homicide: Sex And Death In The Big City. Isn’t that a great title?”

Columbia physics professor Albert Wentworth, known to his colleagues as Buzzkill, had his own take when reporters started to ask about Daylight Saving Time. “Look, I get it. It’s frustrating, it’s irritating, it’s outdated, it’s a nuisance having to change your clocks every few months. Back and forth. And it’s not like we ever gain back that one hour of lost sleep. We just spend a week in a daze as we go through our daily routine, thinking we’re off by an hour, which we are. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it but complain. Daylight Saving Time is here to stay...” Reporters interrupted him, telling him about the murder. He paused for a long moment. “What are you asking me for about a murder? Dammit, man, I’m a scientist, not a detective! Come back to me when you want my opinion on temporal theory or the bending of light.”

Millions of people might well be suspects. Daylight Saving Time is used in places across the world, with exceptions here and there, and there are always complaints and grumbles from every corner when it comes time to yet again lose that hour every year. “It might be easier to compile a list of everyone who didn’t have reason to hate Daylight Saving Time,” Larry King quipped. “I mean, I’d be on the other list, I can’t stand Daylight Saving Time, and I’m kind of retired.”

 One person is already in the clear, though simply because she is currently incarcerated in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, awaiting trial on multiple murder charges. Renowned mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, the infamous and prolific serial killer who stands accused of potentially thousands of murders over decades, spoke to this reporter by phone from the detention facility that currently serves as her residence. “Someone actually killed a person by that name? And dumped their body in Times Square? And nobody saw it? Sounds like the sort of thing I’d commit, I mean, that I’d write, if I wasn’t stuck in this cell. But I won’t be here long. I’ll get out. And when I do, I’ll get even with that insufferable Mountie who arrested me.”

The last word in the case belongs to the aforementioned Mountie. The world’s most fearsome lawman, RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich, who arrested Fletcher for murder, has often been mistaken for another Lars Ulrich, who happens to play the drums for Metallica when not yelling at people to speak up. Ulrich the lawman was reached for comment by phone at his detachment in the Alberta foothills. Reassured by this reporter that he was fully aware that the inspector was not that Lars Ulrich, the Mountie confirmed that he was aware of the murder case in New York. “It’s a hell of a thing,” he said in that gritty, cranky way that has driven many an entertainment reporter to run for their lives. “Most people hate Daylight Saving Time. Narrowing down a suspect list might be next to impossible.” When asked what he thought of Daylight Saving Time, the Inspector replied, “To borrow a phrase from Tolkien... Daylight Saving Time was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade. It must be cast back into the fiery chasm from where it came.”