Murder of Robert Darken
by John B.

Monica woke up early on a beautiful Saturday morning in March, in her apartment in Toronto Canada. She woke up from a spine-chilling nightmare. She dreamt that her husband had committed a gruesome, cold-blooded murder at Bob’s Tavern, that night. In her dream, Dane (her husband) got into an argument with a fellow customer, about which hockey team was better: the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Montreal Canadians. Monica knew that her husband adored the Maple Leafs and that he would not stop arguing until the other customer saw it his way. When the Maple Leafs lost the Stanley Cup a couple years ago, Dane stayed in bed for two weeks watching the game repeatedly. He kept asking himself, “why, why, why, the Maple Leafs, why them?”

Then further into the dream, Dane and the other customer started pushing and shoving, the bartender broke them up and sent them to the opposite sides of the bar. The next thing that Monica remembers is a bloody knife in Dane’s hand and blood gushing out of the customer’s neck like a waterfall. That’s when Monica woke up, sweating from head to toe. To her joy, she saw her husband sleeping peacefully next to her. She just knew in her heart that her husband wouldn’t do anything like that. He is too nice of a person and he has too much to lose if he did do it he wasn’t that stupid. Monica got up quietly from the bed, went to the living room, and started watching the early morning news as she sipped her coffee. She was just about to start making breakfast when breaking news came on.

“Robert Darken was killed earlier this morning at Bob’s Tavern. As many of you may know, Robert Darken is the great –great grandson of Jason Darken, the founder of Darken Village. That is it for now. When more news comes in about this shocking homicide we will let you know.”

Monica looked back at her bedroom where Dane is sleeping silently and peacefully. She had a terrifying look on her face. After about five minutes of staring into space, she heard a knock at the door and jumped with surprise. The mysterious knock belonged to a Toronto state police officer.

“What a surprise officer. What can I do for you this lovely Saturday morning,” said Monica.

“Yes is your husband here?” said the officer, firmly.

“Yes, but he is sleeping right now. Could you come back later? He has had a bad week at work.”

“Sorry ma-am, but this is extremely urgent.”

“Ok, then please come in, is there anything I can do for you, officer.”

“Just please get your husband, ma-am,” as he said walking in the apartment.

“Yes, of course.”

She went to wake up Dane in their bedroom, which was in the back of the apartment and to the right of the door.

“Dane, Dane get up, a police officer is in the living room and would like to ask you some questions”

“Fine. Tell them I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

While Monica went to go tell him, that Dane would be there in a few minutes. Dane went to go wash up a bit. As Dane was walking towards the kitchen, where the police officer was sitting, he saw Bob’s Tavern on the television and froze in his tracks for a couple of seconds then he kept going.

“What can I do for you, officer?”

“Just answer a few questions, and then we will be on our way.”

“Ok.”

“Where were you last night between ten p.m. and one a.m.?

“I was at Bob’s Tavern from about ten to eleven- thirty.”

“Ok, was there anyone that could confirm that?”

“Yeah, um…the bartender and there was another person in there but I don’t know his name.”

“Did he look like this?”

“Yeah, that’s him, why?”

“The man in the picture is Robert Darken and he was killed last night around midnight at Bob’s Tavern.”

A look of astonishment fell upon him.

“How did he die, officer?”

“Someone cut his throat open.”

“Damn!” he said as he fell back in a chair with shock.

“So are you sure that there was no one else in the tavern last night?”

“There was no one else that I saw. At least I don’t think so.”

“That’s not good enough for us; we need you to positively sure that you saw no one else.”

“Hold on give me a couple of seconds to think. Yeah…yeah I am sure that is all that I saw.”

“Ok, thanks. We will be in touch.”

“Have a nice day officer”

Monica closed the door behind them, and turned around looking worried.

“What’s wrong Monica?” asked Dane.

“I just have to ask…did you or did you not kill that man?”

“No! Why would you ever ask such a thing?”

“Well…I had a dream about you and that person getting into an argument about which hockey team was better, the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Montreal Canadians. Then awhile later, I saw you standing over him with a bloody knife and the person was gushing blood from his neck.”

“Well obviously that isn’t true. You now that I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

I am sorry I ever doubted you.”

“I forgive you.”

The next day, Dane got a phone call at work asking him to come down to the police station to answer some questions that the detectives would like to ask him. After work, Dane calls Monica to tell her where he was going so she would not worry. Then he took a drive to the police station. When he got there, the police officer that came to his house yesterday greeted him. The police officer led him to an interrogation room in the back of the complex. In the room, there was a table, a couple of chairs, a tape recorder, and possibly a two-way mirror. There, he described everything that happened and everything he knew. When Dane got up to leave, he remembered that there was a person’s figure outside the bar looking in at them a couple of times during his stay at the tavern and, because there was a light post right outside, Dane got a good look at him. Therefore, the police had him describe this person and then sent in a sketch artist. With that evidence, the police were capable of searching for this mysterious man.

As the police went on with that, some forensic scientists examined the body in a clean lab while others were at the bloody crime scene analyzing it. The forensic scientists at both places found a couple strands of hair. Since some of the hair was found on the body at the lab, they had the equipment to identify whom the vendor of the hair is. One strand belonged to the bartender and the other to Jim Bullaak. They can find out this information because when you are born they put your personal information into a database. So now, those two are the main suspects.

The forensic scientist at the lab found out, while examining the body that there were actually two separate wounds in the victim’s neck, starting from the middle of the neck going towards the spinal cord. So either their suspect had two knives or there were multiple suspects. At the crime scene, the detectives found two knives just outside the bathroom window. The knives were slightly rusted and were believed to be almost entirely covered with blood, they found multiple smudged fingerprints on both knives. One knife’s fingerprints looked precisely like the bartender’s fingerprints and the police believe the fingerprints on the other knife belong to Jim Bullaak, the mysterious figure outside of the tavern.

Although the fingerprints on the knives did not fully match the suspects, the police still took them into custody hoping for a confession. Of course, they said they didn’t know what in the world the officers were talking about. Therefore, they called Dane back into the station to verify that it is actually Jim Bullaak that he saw looking in on Bob’s Tavern. They had Jim line up with six other people and sure enough, Dane chose Jim as the accused. Dane was surprised when the police said that the bartender was one of the main suspects in the case, because he has known the bartender of Bob’s Tavern for quite a while. They have grown to be fantastic friends.

When the trials came around, the police department asked Dane to testify and, he agreed. At the end of the trials, both suspects were released because there is not enough evidence to prove either one guilty of murdering Robert Darken.

Twenty years later, when Dane was 55, he was going through some of his old things. He came upon a newspaper with the heading “The Murder of Robert Darken.”

At the site of it, Dane broke down in tears like a baby. His wife has recently joined the dead, on account of a gang shooting. Today the shooter turned himself in. Dane thought to himself about the Robert Darken case and how it was never solved and then about his wife’s death, how the shooter had enough guts to turn himself in. After thinking about this a bit more, he got dressed and went down to the police station. He went up to the front desk and said, “I killed Robert Darken twenty years ago. I framed Jim Bullaak and Bob Phite, the bartender of Bobs Tavern. I planted the two knives outside the bathroom window. I did it. It was I!”

“Sorry sir, we can’t accept that confession.”

“Why not?”

“Well for one, how do we know that you weren’t put up to this, and second your about 5 years overdue. A murder case is closed after 15 years and when it is closed, it cannot be reopened!”

Dane turned around and walked out of the station very silently and very slowly. It’s a tragedy that he had to lose his wife before he realized what a terrible thing he had done. He went home and asked himself, “Why did I kill him?” Then he realized that the answer was in the Toronto Maple Leafs. He said to him self “I killed a human being because they disagreed with me about which hockey team was better. I am a monster! I am not worthy to be among the living.” Those were his last words; he took two knives to his throat the same way he took them to Robert Darken’s throat and he ceased to breath.