6:36 a.m. I sat up on my balcony last night watching the lightening and rain pummeling the water. Waves crashed, sending up white spray that could be seen even in the darkness. The sound of the television drifted through the screen door warning of severe weather and a tornado warning in the area.
I am terrified of tornados. Ever since I was a little girl I've had nightmares about them from time to time when my life gets very hectic. I think it has something to do with their chaotic nature. I don't like not having control of my destiny.
Anyway, here is the rest of the story I promised.
I arrive on scene. The house is a large brick manor-type with large live oak trees dotting the acre or so of property. There is a television news crew standing at the police line talking to the lead detective, we'll call him Det. Sajak because he is as pretty and polished as a game show host.
I drive my vehicle to the police line that is threaded across the driveway and a uniform allows me through after inspecting my badge and credentials.
I enter through the front door. Cops are buzzing around like flies. Evidence technicians are already at work taking photographs and measurements and a group of detectives are chatting in a circle by the kitchen.
The decedent's body is lying on the couch, but I will get to her later. I greet the detectives and they tell me the story. Apparently, this woman was mentally ill. She had severe agoraphobia, to the point that she couldn't go outside without having a debilitating panic attack. She was also depressed and withdrawn, according to her psychiatrist. He'd given her several prescriptions for anti-depressants and muscle relaxants. The psychiatrist said that she hadn't been to see him in several months because her symptoms were becoming worse and she refused to leave the house.
The detectives told me that her husband was usually very kind and understanding of her condition, but this morning he was feeling stressed. He'd been running late for work and his mother was ill. He snapped at her before he walked out the door and it sent her into a tailspin. She wrote about 20 suicide notes to several different people. Envelopes were neatly piled on the kitchen table with names written on them. A notebook was also there. Sort of a diary of despair that she'd been keeping. It appeared that she was considering this for a while.
After she wrote her goodbyes, she went into the bathroom and tried slitting her wrists. Apparently, she didn't have the stomach for that, so she took several Valium. After that she went into the garage and pulled out a string of Christmas lights. Three hours later her husband returned from work to find her hanging from a tree in the backyard.
I walk in the bathroom and note blood droplets on the floor. Four knives are neatly lined up on the bath mat. The blades are all facing west. I inspect them and note that one has blood running along the serated edge. The empty bottle of Valium is by the sink, along with a half-empty glass of what appears to be water. I pour some in a sample jar and screw the lid on tight. I will have the lab analyze it to be sure.
I walk into the kitchen and my eyes fall on all of her goodbye notes. The side door is open and a string of Christmas lights is snaked out the door and into the side yard. I walk out. There is a bar stool under the tree and a kitchen knife that her husband had used to cut her down.
I go back through the kitchen to look at the body. She was very beautiful. Her button-down blouse is open, exposing her breasts and abdomen. Breast implants. She's thin. She's got make-up on. Her hair is blond and shoulder length, with darker roots. She was a high-maintanence girl.
White patches with small metalic buttons are affixed to her skin in two different locations. This indicates to me that the EMTs have come and gone. They checked her vitals and pronounced her dead at the scene. Her wrists have hesitation marks, indicating that she'd tried to slit her wrists before she hung herself. I inspect her clothing and skin for blood. I find none except for big fat droplets that have dried on the tops of her feet. The wrists are clean and have been rubbed with an ointment of some sort. I wonder why she didn't clean her feet?
I check lividity, the red, bruise-like pattern that is left by blood settling to the lowest point after circulation stops. It is shifting gradually. And her core temp is still elevated, though her extremities are cold. She must not have been hanging for more than a few hours. If she was there longer the lividity would have set as the blood cooled and congealed. I put on some latex gloves and open each eye. I note pricks of blood in the whites. This is known as petechial hemorrhaging and is indicative of forced and severe oxygen deprivation.
I close the woman's blouse and there are several groans from the other side of the room. "Aw, Polly! We were still investigating that!" Yeah. I bet you were. Jackass. I think back last week to when I walked down into the autopsy suite to pull some prints. There was a dead woman with an absolutely gorgeous body lying on a tray next to the wall. But her face was covered with a sheet. You see, she was older and had an unattractive face, so the guys had covered her head. I was disgusted.
I take a length of the Christmas lights so that the ME can do an impression comparison. Before I leave, I copy down the suicide note she wrote to her husband for my report. In it she said that she didn't want to burden him with her illness anymore. She said she was going to the loving arms of God where she would find comfort and have no more fears. She told her husband she would love him forever and would be waiting for him.
I listened to Full of Grace, by Sarah McLachlan on the way home from work that night and thought of the woman who'd killed herself. And I thought of how her poor husband must be suffering. To this day I can't hear that song without both of them coming to mind.
The winter here’s cold, and bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
Haven’t seen the sun for weeks
To long too far from home
I feel just like I’m sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
So it’s better this way, I said
Having seen this place before
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
Friday, August 19, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
8/18/05b
I wrote the following poem the night I got home from working the case that I am going to write about later today. The woman who killed herself had agoraphobia.
Shame
She sits on the floor
Naked
Bleeding
This just won’t do
She lines up the knives on the bath mat
Five blade edges all facing west
She fills up the tub
Washes herself off
All but her feet
She puts on fresh clothes
Swallows a vial of pills
She’s got plenty more
That she didn’t take
Until now
Goes out to the garage
And wonders what to use
To take her to God
She hopes He’ll understand
One can’t be expected to live this way
Crazy
She looks around
Smiles
Christmas lights
And here it’s July
Funny
She goes outside
She’s not afraid this time
This last time
To leave the house
She gets the stool
It’s shady, here.
No grass grows under this tree
Just dirt
She climbs
Smiles
Looks down at the lights
That circle her neck
And thinks that this is her Christmas tree
And thinks that the grass is dead
And thinks that it died because it had no light
It’s hard to see
Fuzzy
The drugs are making her sway
She already wrote the note
The one her husband will find
After he cuts her down
With one of the knives in the bathroom
He will hold her pale body
He will rock her
And cry
And be sorry that he snapped at her that morning
Because he knew she was delicate
It’s just that mom was sick
And work was stressful
And he was running late
What a shame
Shame
She sits on the floor
Naked
Bleeding
This just won’t do
She lines up the knives on the bath mat
Five blade edges all facing west
She fills up the tub
Washes herself off
All but her feet
She puts on fresh clothes
Swallows a vial of pills
She’s got plenty more
That she didn’t take
Until now
Goes out to the garage
And wonders what to use
To take her to God
She hopes He’ll understand
One can’t be expected to live this way
Crazy
She looks around
Smiles
Christmas lights
And here it’s July
Funny
She goes outside
She’s not afraid this time
This last time
To leave the house
She gets the stool
It’s shady, here.
No grass grows under this tree
Just dirt
She climbs
Smiles
Looks down at the lights
That circle her neck
And thinks that this is her Christmas tree
And thinks that the grass is dead
And thinks that it died because it had no light
It’s hard to see
Fuzzy
The drugs are making her sway
She already wrote the note
The one her husband will find
After he cuts her down
With one of the knives in the bathroom
He will hold her pale body
He will rock her
And cry
And be sorry that he snapped at her that morning
Because he knew she was delicate
It’s just that mom was sick
And work was stressful
And he was running late
What a shame
8/18/05a WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
8:24 a.m. I walk into the office Monday afternoon and am greeted by utter chaos. Or maybe this is how it always is and I've just been spoiled having just returned from a two week vacation.
There were eight cases yesterday and four of them went to autopsy. I pick up the files and sit down in my favorite chair to read. Two of these cases are death certificate inquiries because the doctor entered an erroneous manner or cause of death. This happens a lot. I look over the first file. Manner of death (MOD) is listed as "natural". The doc reasoned that the decedent had been bed-ridden and died of pneumonia...a natural consequence of being bed-ridden for an extended period of time, since fluid will collect in the lungs when you are horizontal too long. However, the dead guy had been in a car accident three years earlier which left him a quadrapolegic...which led to his being bed-ridden...which led to the pneumonia. So, the drunk driver that hit him that night three years earlier, in a sense, killed him yesterday. It was ruled vehicular homicide. I called the MD and explained the situation to him. He agreed to change the DC to reflect a homicide. After that I called Homicide so they could open a new investigation and determine whether additional charges were to be filed against the drunk driver.
The second DC issue was a doctor that entered "cardiac arrest" as the cause of death (COD). The Chief ME gets really pissed off about this one. Soon after I'd started working here I made the mistake of asking her what was wrong with cardiac arrest. "Cardiac arrest means that your heart stops!" she says with irritation, "Everybody's heart stops when they die! We want to know what led to the heart stopping...whether it was a heart condition or a Mack truck." Fair enough.
I moved on to two other files which turned out to be inspections. Inspections are cases where the manner and cause of death are fairly sure and the ME feels there is no need to perform an autopsy. The first was a 98-year-old woman who passed away in her sleep. She hadn't been to a doctor for years, but there was no need to believe that she had died of anything other than natural causes. The second was a 55-year-old, 400 lbs man who had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure 10 years earlier. The doctor that diagnosed him refused to sign the death certificate because he hadn't seen the decedent in so long. The man's ankles were swollen and red, a result of poor circulation. That and his gross obesity are classic symptom of CHF. The circumstances surrounding his death were not unusual or suspicious. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and collapsed in the hallway. No need for an autopsy in this case, either.
I was just starting to look over the four autopsies that had taken place this morning when a call came in from Homicide. A hanging suicide. 35-year-old female.
I get directions and grab my jacket, happy to leave the office for a while.
This case is not far from the MEO. And it is in a very nice neighborhood. I was there a few weeks ago when a housewife whose lawyer husband was cheating on her left her multi-million dollar mansion after sending the kids off to school, walked to the park across the street, sat on a bench and shot herself through the head with a handgun. It took evidence technicians two hours and three metal detectors to find the shell casing in the debris at the base of a live oak tree several feet away.
More later....
There were eight cases yesterday and four of them went to autopsy. I pick up the files and sit down in my favorite chair to read. Two of these cases are death certificate inquiries because the doctor entered an erroneous manner or cause of death. This happens a lot. I look over the first file. Manner of death (MOD) is listed as "natural". The doc reasoned that the decedent had been bed-ridden and died of pneumonia...a natural consequence of being bed-ridden for an extended period of time, since fluid will collect in the lungs when you are horizontal too long. However, the dead guy had been in a car accident three years earlier which left him a quadrapolegic...which led to his being bed-ridden...which led to the pneumonia. So, the drunk driver that hit him that night three years earlier, in a sense, killed him yesterday. It was ruled vehicular homicide. I called the MD and explained the situation to him. He agreed to change the DC to reflect a homicide. After that I called Homicide so they could open a new investigation and determine whether additional charges were to be filed against the drunk driver.
The second DC issue was a doctor that entered "cardiac arrest" as the cause of death (COD). The Chief ME gets really pissed off about this one. Soon after I'd started working here I made the mistake of asking her what was wrong with cardiac arrest. "Cardiac arrest means that your heart stops!" she says with irritation, "Everybody's heart stops when they die! We want to know what led to the heart stopping...whether it was a heart condition or a Mack truck." Fair enough.
I moved on to two other files which turned out to be inspections. Inspections are cases where the manner and cause of death are fairly sure and the ME feels there is no need to perform an autopsy. The first was a 98-year-old woman who passed away in her sleep. She hadn't been to a doctor for years, but there was no need to believe that she had died of anything other than natural causes. The second was a 55-year-old, 400 lbs man who had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure 10 years earlier. The doctor that diagnosed him refused to sign the death certificate because he hadn't seen the decedent in so long. The man's ankles were swollen and red, a result of poor circulation. That and his gross obesity are classic symptom of CHF. The circumstances surrounding his death were not unusual or suspicious. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and collapsed in the hallway. No need for an autopsy in this case, either.
I was just starting to look over the four autopsies that had taken place this morning when a call came in from Homicide. A hanging suicide. 35-year-old female.
I get directions and grab my jacket, happy to leave the office for a while.
This case is not far from the MEO. And it is in a very nice neighborhood. I was there a few weeks ago when a housewife whose lawyer husband was cheating on her left her multi-million dollar mansion after sending the kids off to school, walked to the park across the street, sat on a bench and shot herself through the head with a handgun. It took evidence technicians two hours and three metal detectors to find the shell casing in the debris at the base of a live oak tree several feet away.
More later....
8/18/05
8:10 a.m. There is an Asian lady outside my window yelling at a pigeon. She's been having a very serious discussion with the bird for the past 20 minutes or so. I don't know what it did to piss her off, but it must have been bad. She is shaking her pointer finger at it and scowling.
I love my job.
Today I am going to write about a hanging case. This case also deals with mental illness and its role in suicide.
But first I need to move my truck. The street sweeper is coming.
More later...
I love my job.
Today I am going to write about a hanging case. This case also deals with mental illness and its role in suicide.
But first I need to move my truck. The street sweeper is coming.
More later...
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
8/17/05
8:40 a.m. I've been filming my Subject for a half-hour. (He's on a leave of absence from work on account of him being so very ill, you see.) This is a pretty slick neighborhood...right across the street from a park. Nice brown-stone apartment buildings. Maybe a 2 on the Scary Neighborhood Scale.
Subject just slipped out of view while walking his dog around the corner. I'm debating foot pursuit or just waiting for him to come back. He's got the dog, after all. Not like he'll go too far. It took me almost an hour to find a parking spot this morning because traffic is so congested here. I feel like I won the lottery. I'm right in front of his house.
Well, I'm gonna load up the spy purse and go for walk. It's a nice day, so why not?
More later...
Subject just slipped out of view while walking his dog around the corner. I'm debating foot pursuit or just waiting for him to come back. He's got the dog, after all. Not like he'll go too far. It took me almost an hour to find a parking spot this morning because traffic is so congested here. I feel like I won the lottery. I'm right in front of his house.
Well, I'm gonna load up the spy purse and go for walk. It's a nice day, so why not?
More later...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
8/15/05
7:25 a.m. A day off. I feel so spoiled. Two in one week. It's a record. Today I plan to clean out the refrigerator. (Ahem) I am also signing up for a 5K coming up later in September. It will give me a goal other than eating and chasing people with my camera.
I'm going to tell one more story from when I was a kid. It involves death. (Surprise, surprise.) I think that things I gravitated toward later in life were shaped a lot by what I experienced growing up and that is why these stories in particular stand out to me.
Vlad was a dark-eyed boy of Russian decent. He had stick-straight black hair that stuck up all over. He was always kind of strange. I could never quite put my finger on what was off about him. He was a boy that, upon meeting me as a three-year-old, immediately asked me if I wanted to go in the woods and “strip”. Strip? I asked him what that was and he informed me that we would take off all our clothes and then look at each other naked. Oh. Well, okay, then. Welcome to the neighborhood.
When Vlad was older, he used to dress up like a ninja and peak in the windows of neighborhood girls' houses until somebody’s father called the cops on him. How proud his parents must have been when they answered the door that night...
Vlad was definitely weird and perverted, but (except for the ninja getup) I suppose peaking in a girl’s window is not out of the realm of possibility for a horny teen-ager.
I think the real concern with Vlad was his homicidal tendencies. When he was a child, his parents kept him stocked with a fresh supply of gerbils because he somehow managed to kill them off every few weeks. I can only imagine how the little rodents in pet stores panicked on hearing they were going to be Vlad’s pets.
Going to his house was the kiss of death. He’d hug them to the point of suffocation or chop off their tails in Frankenstein experiments that ended badly. A couple died from apparent heart attacks when he and his big brother decided to use them as the ball in a football game.
As far as I know, I was Vlad’s only human victim of violence. (Of course, that was a long time ago.) It was late September. I was in third grade and would normally be in school on an early Tuesday afternoon. Our teachers had gone out on strike, however, so the neighborhood kids were being kept home on an indefinite sabbatical from education. And that was fine by us.
Vlad, Tina, Chris, and I sat in my driveway on the broad hood of the old family station wagon. My dad hated that car. There was always something going wrong with it. One night he was laughing in his sleep and when mom woke him up he said he’d been dreaming that the car rolled off a cliff and then a huge boulder fell on it.
The wagon's hood was big and flat and there was plenty of room for all four of us to sit on it. I was near the edge with my legs crossed, facing the center. I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but I remember saying something to Vlad in a teasing tone about his penchant for “gerbilcide”.
(I learned a valuable life-lesson here… never taunt crazy people.)
Apparently, he was a little touchy about the subject because he pushed me. I teetered, waving my arms in broad circles in an attempt to regain my balance. I just caught myself and was straightening up when he pushed me again, harder. And this time I fell backward over the edge of the car. I would have landed squarely on the top of my head, except that I put my left arm up just in time to catch my fall. And just in time to shatter my elbow joint as my entire body weight bore down on it. I heard a sickening snap next to my ear as my arm hyperextended and I tumbled back onto the pavement.
I pulled my injured arm to my body and sucked in air as I lay on my back near the wheel well of the car. The pain was exquisite. Bright lights were flashing in my vision and I imagine I was screaming...loudly. I saw Vlad, his face ashen, peer over the edge of the hood at me. I looked away from him and instead concentrated on the sky. It was such a vivid blue with puffy white clouds moving through it. And as I stared up toward heaven, I remember praying that God would let me die rather than feel such unbearable pain. I’ve always been kind of a drama queen.
Tina, always my protector, helped me up off the ground and told Vlad to get out of our yard and never come back. I’m sure Tina would have chased him down and beat him with a stick if she wasn't busy walking me into the house to see Mom.
Mom was the testament of calm. I guess after 5 kids, she was used to gashed, broken and bruised bodies. She calmly examined my arm and got me an icepack before driving me off to the doctor’s office.
A couple of hours later, I found myself on the way home in a sling and a plaster half-caste that extended from my shoulder to my wrist. It still hurt, but by then I was riding high on some top-rate painkillers and I was pleasantly buzzed and drowsy. As I stepped out of the car, I glanced next door and watched with detached amusement as Vlad, his face again white with a different kind of fear, high-tailed it out the backdoor of his house with his mother in hot pursuit, disappearing behind a thicket of trees.
Years later, when I was 13 or 14-years-old, I went out for a walk and noticed Clair, Jack and Sandy out in the front yard. They hovered above a white towel covering a small lump on the ground near their front door. An asymmetrical pool of blood oozed out from beneath it.
I asked what happened and Jack, distraught but trying valiantly not to cry, said that Muffy, their dog, had jumped off the retention wall and killed herself. Even then I found it fishy that she would bleed like that from a four-foot fall. I wanted to inspect, but Clair wouldn’t let me. In the end, I reasoned that she must have tripped and hit her head at just the right angle on the concrete.
Poor Muffy. She was an ancient wiener dog that didn’t particularly like strangers or kids. And she’d been around for as long as I could remember; since before Jack was born, even. Muffy was a spunky old girl, low to the ground and the color of cinnamon sticks. It was comical how imposing she thought she was when a mere toddler could have easily drop-kicked her across the yard.
But Muffy had a weapon far worse than her teeth. She jealously guarded her home and her people with a yippy little bark that was just the right tone to pierce ruthlessly into the soft depths of your brain. And though I have no personal knowledge as of yet, I can imagine shoving an ice pick through your ear would not be unlike experiencing a Muffy bark.
It was a sad day and despite how universally annoying she was to everybody but her owners, I felt a loss when Muffy died. In the end, she was interred in a tasteful backyard ceremony right next to the deer forelimb that my father had bagged on that hunting trip years before. May they both rest in peace.
It was years later when my dearest and oldest friend, Helena, (another victim of the Peeping Ninja) told me that Vlad had been out in his backyard tanning the day Muffy died. After listening to her bark incessantly for well nigh an hour…at squirrels, passing cars, or the wind that dared to rustle the trees in her yard…he went into his house, got his father’s handgun, and killed her.
When Clair and her kids got another dog, he killed that one, too. He was never caught or punished.
That was a lot of years ago and I wouldn’t be surprised if Vlad has since graduated into a full-blown Geoffrey Daumer-type serial killer…replete with lampshades made of human skin at this point. And I'm only half-kidding about that.
Gee, I hope he never reads this blog.
I'm going to tell one more story from when I was a kid. It involves death. (Surprise, surprise.) I think that things I gravitated toward later in life were shaped a lot by what I experienced growing up and that is why these stories in particular stand out to me.
Vlad was a dark-eyed boy of Russian decent. He had stick-straight black hair that stuck up all over. He was always kind of strange. I could never quite put my finger on what was off about him. He was a boy that, upon meeting me as a three-year-old, immediately asked me if I wanted to go in the woods and “strip”. Strip? I asked him what that was and he informed me that we would take off all our clothes and then look at each other naked. Oh. Well, okay, then. Welcome to the neighborhood.
When Vlad was older, he used to dress up like a ninja and peak in the windows of neighborhood girls' houses until somebody’s father called the cops on him. How proud his parents must have been when they answered the door that night...
Vlad was definitely weird and perverted, but (except for the ninja getup) I suppose peaking in a girl’s window is not out of the realm of possibility for a horny teen-ager.
I think the real concern with Vlad was his homicidal tendencies. When he was a child, his parents kept him stocked with a fresh supply of gerbils because he somehow managed to kill them off every few weeks. I can only imagine how the little rodents in pet stores panicked on hearing they were going to be Vlad’s pets.
Going to his house was the kiss of death. He’d hug them to the point of suffocation or chop off their tails in Frankenstein experiments that ended badly. A couple died from apparent heart attacks when he and his big brother decided to use them as the ball in a football game.
As far as I know, I was Vlad’s only human victim of violence. (Of course, that was a long time ago.) It was late September. I was in third grade and would normally be in school on an early Tuesday afternoon. Our teachers had gone out on strike, however, so the neighborhood kids were being kept home on an indefinite sabbatical from education. And that was fine by us.
Vlad, Tina, Chris, and I sat in my driveway on the broad hood of the old family station wagon. My dad hated that car. There was always something going wrong with it. One night he was laughing in his sleep and when mom woke him up he said he’d been dreaming that the car rolled off a cliff and then a huge boulder fell on it.
The wagon's hood was big and flat and there was plenty of room for all four of us to sit on it. I was near the edge with my legs crossed, facing the center. I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but I remember saying something to Vlad in a teasing tone about his penchant for “gerbilcide”.
(I learned a valuable life-lesson here… never taunt crazy people.)
Apparently, he was a little touchy about the subject because he pushed me. I teetered, waving my arms in broad circles in an attempt to regain my balance. I just caught myself and was straightening up when he pushed me again, harder. And this time I fell backward over the edge of the car. I would have landed squarely on the top of my head, except that I put my left arm up just in time to catch my fall. And just in time to shatter my elbow joint as my entire body weight bore down on it. I heard a sickening snap next to my ear as my arm hyperextended and I tumbled back onto the pavement.
I pulled my injured arm to my body and sucked in air as I lay on my back near the wheel well of the car. The pain was exquisite. Bright lights were flashing in my vision and I imagine I was screaming...loudly. I saw Vlad, his face ashen, peer over the edge of the hood at me. I looked away from him and instead concentrated on the sky. It was such a vivid blue with puffy white clouds moving through it. And as I stared up toward heaven, I remember praying that God would let me die rather than feel such unbearable pain. I’ve always been kind of a drama queen.
Tina, always my protector, helped me up off the ground and told Vlad to get out of our yard and never come back. I’m sure Tina would have chased him down and beat him with a stick if she wasn't busy walking me into the house to see Mom.
Mom was the testament of calm. I guess after 5 kids, she was used to gashed, broken and bruised bodies. She calmly examined my arm and got me an icepack before driving me off to the doctor’s office.
A couple of hours later, I found myself on the way home in a sling and a plaster half-caste that extended from my shoulder to my wrist. It still hurt, but by then I was riding high on some top-rate painkillers and I was pleasantly buzzed and drowsy. As I stepped out of the car, I glanced next door and watched with detached amusement as Vlad, his face again white with a different kind of fear, high-tailed it out the backdoor of his house with his mother in hot pursuit, disappearing behind a thicket of trees.
Years later, when I was 13 or 14-years-old, I went out for a walk and noticed Clair, Jack and Sandy out in the front yard. They hovered above a white towel covering a small lump on the ground near their front door. An asymmetrical pool of blood oozed out from beneath it.
I asked what happened and Jack, distraught but trying valiantly not to cry, said that Muffy, their dog, had jumped off the retention wall and killed herself. Even then I found it fishy that she would bleed like that from a four-foot fall. I wanted to inspect, but Clair wouldn’t let me. In the end, I reasoned that she must have tripped and hit her head at just the right angle on the concrete.
Poor Muffy. She was an ancient wiener dog that didn’t particularly like strangers or kids. And she’d been around for as long as I could remember; since before Jack was born, even. Muffy was a spunky old girl, low to the ground and the color of cinnamon sticks. It was comical how imposing she thought she was when a mere toddler could have easily drop-kicked her across the yard.
But Muffy had a weapon far worse than her teeth. She jealously guarded her home and her people with a yippy little bark that was just the right tone to pierce ruthlessly into the soft depths of your brain. And though I have no personal knowledge as of yet, I can imagine shoving an ice pick through your ear would not be unlike experiencing a Muffy bark.
It was a sad day and despite how universally annoying she was to everybody but her owners, I felt a loss when Muffy died. In the end, she was interred in a tasteful backyard ceremony right next to the deer forelimb that my father had bagged on that hunting trip years before. May they both rest in peace.
It was years later when my dearest and oldest friend, Helena, (another victim of the Peeping Ninja) told me that Vlad had been out in his backyard tanning the day Muffy died. After listening to her bark incessantly for well nigh an hour…at squirrels, passing cars, or the wind that dared to rustle the trees in her yard…he went into his house, got his father’s handgun, and killed her.
When Clair and her kids got another dog, he killed that one, too. He was never caught or punished.
That was a lot of years ago and I wouldn’t be surprised if Vlad has since graduated into a full-blown Geoffrey Daumer-type serial killer…replete with lampshades made of human skin at this point. And I'm only half-kidding about that.
Gee, I hope he never reads this blog.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Sunday, August 14, 2005
8/14/05
It was mid-morning in autumn. I grabbed my jacket and stepped outside on the front porch of the house I grew up in. I stood there for a moment with my hands in my pockets. I could smell in the air the smoke of wood-burning fireplaces and the cool mustiness of rotting leaves. The fall colors had passed a few weeks back, leaving the twisted bones of maples, oaks, and ashes standing like arthritic sentinels around the neighborhood.
Yesterday afternoon, Daddy and my teen-aged brother, Tom, had returned with a young doe strapped to the back of the station wagon and many harrowing tales of their manly hunting exploits…including my brother accidentally waking a bear that was sleeping in a cave. Mom’s eyes widened at that, but Daddy was careful to add that it was groggy and did not give chase.
I stepped off the porch and walked toward the open garage door. Daddy and Tom must have been up early because they were half-way finished dressing the deer carcass that hung from the ceiling. I sat on an overturned bucket and asked Daddy several questions regarding deer anatomy while he cut off various parts and pieces and tossed them on a tarp that already heaped with intestines, organs, and a severed head.
After I'd peppered Dad with enough questions, I turned my attention to the tarp. The head was on its side near the edge of the pile. I knelt down to get a closer look. The eyes were a dull and cloudy brown with the lids half-closed. I imagined that when it was alive those eyes were clear and bright. It had such long eyelashes! The mouth was open with the pink, velvety tongue hanging out the side. I did not touch it, but moved around the other side of the tarp so I could observe the back of its head. I saw shredded skin and tissue from where the blade had sawed back and forth along the neck. The bone had not been hacked through, but disarticulated between two cervical vertebrae. I got a cold feeling inside, like something in my spirit was being assaulted, but then I looked over at Dad and Tom…who were just chatting away like this was nothing...and gave in to my curiosity.
I picked up one of the bony legs and inspected it, pressing the flesh between my fingers. There was no fat under the velvety fur. The amputation had been just above the second joint and I found, to my great amusement, that when I pulled on the exuding tab of thick iridescent tendon, the “elbow” retracted. I could make it wave!
Thrilled with my new party trick and completely forgetting my moment of reverent sadness earlier, I swiped the limb out of the pile and brought it over to Clair’s house to show Jack and Sandy. Jack answered the door. He was now eight-years-old. He and Sandy came out and inspected my prize. I showed them the wave. Hi! But to my irritation they were not as amused as I was. In fact, the little peace-lovers were sickened by the death and mutilation of one of God’s beautiful creatures. Oh, for Pete’s sake!
So, several minutes later, I found myself giving a eulogy for a deer forelimb in Jack's backyard. Part of me was tempted to fight them for it before it was interred, but then I thought better of it. I had three more where that came from, after all.
Yesterday afternoon, Daddy and my teen-aged brother, Tom, had returned with a young doe strapped to the back of the station wagon and many harrowing tales of their manly hunting exploits…including my brother accidentally waking a bear that was sleeping in a cave. Mom’s eyes widened at that, but Daddy was careful to add that it was groggy and did not give chase.
I stepped off the porch and walked toward the open garage door. Daddy and Tom must have been up early because they were half-way finished dressing the deer carcass that hung from the ceiling. I sat on an overturned bucket and asked Daddy several questions regarding deer anatomy while he cut off various parts and pieces and tossed them on a tarp that already heaped with intestines, organs, and a severed head.
After I'd peppered Dad with enough questions, I turned my attention to the tarp. The head was on its side near the edge of the pile. I knelt down to get a closer look. The eyes were a dull and cloudy brown with the lids half-closed. I imagined that when it was alive those eyes were clear and bright. It had such long eyelashes! The mouth was open with the pink, velvety tongue hanging out the side. I did not touch it, but moved around the other side of the tarp so I could observe the back of its head. I saw shredded skin and tissue from where the blade had sawed back and forth along the neck. The bone had not been hacked through, but disarticulated between two cervical vertebrae. I got a cold feeling inside, like something in my spirit was being assaulted, but then I looked over at Dad and Tom…who were just chatting away like this was nothing...and gave in to my curiosity.
I picked up one of the bony legs and inspected it, pressing the flesh between my fingers. There was no fat under the velvety fur. The amputation had been just above the second joint and I found, to my great amusement, that when I pulled on the exuding tab of thick iridescent tendon, the “elbow” retracted. I could make it wave!
Thrilled with my new party trick and completely forgetting my moment of reverent sadness earlier, I swiped the limb out of the pile and brought it over to Clair’s house to show Jack and Sandy. Jack answered the door. He was now eight-years-old. He and Sandy came out and inspected my prize. I showed them the wave. Hi! But to my irritation they were not as amused as I was. In fact, the little peace-lovers were sickened by the death and mutilation of one of God’s beautiful creatures. Oh, for Pete’s sake!
So, several minutes later, I found myself giving a eulogy for a deer forelimb in Jack's backyard. Part of me was tempted to fight them for it before it was interred, but then I thought better of it. I had three more where that came from, after all.
Friday, August 12, 2005
8/12/05a
9:08 a.m. I just got a call from my client on the case I have today. I was supposed to pick up the guy as he left work this afternoon but it appears Subject's going to be leaving on vacation for Wisconsin.
Luckily my bags are still packed. I have no idea where we're going to end up. Isn't this fun??
More later...
Incidentally, I was just finishing up that last blog entry when I heard a sizzling sound outside my window. Then a pop. Then the power blipped off and on again.
Poor squirrel...
Luckily my bags are still packed. I have no idea where we're going to end up. Isn't this fun??
More later...
Incidentally, I was just finishing up that last blog entry when I heard a sizzling sound outside my window. Then a pop. Then the power blipped off and on again.
Poor squirrel...
8/12/05
8:09 a.m. I was going to entitle this post POINTERS FOR THE BUDDING INVESTIGATOR. But, upon reflection, I think that STUPID THINGS I'VE DONE is probably more appropriate.
Like the time I called a Subject's office on pretext and hadn't figured out an alias yet. When Mira Abooboo's secretary asked me to leave a name, I freaked and said, "Sharon...Abooboo...No relation." Gulp. Amazingly, I got away with it because the person I was investigating owned and operated an Indian dress-making shop so her clientelle was primarily Indian.
Or the time that I had a certain home video I'd made that ended up going to Corp instead of the Flanders case. (Ahem.) I got an email from Jethro at the office a few days later commenting on how the camera didn't seem to add ten pounds to me at all... (See Polly's face in a mask of complete and total horror.)
Speaking of work videos... There was the time that I had, apperently, left the camera on for about 20 minutes while it lay in my lap. Corporate got a good laugh out of what they so kindly dubbed "The crotch cam".
Or when I was eating hazelnuts in my truck before going in to an interview with a Subject. I walked up to the door and a big, handsome brute of a man answered. Yum. I smiled at him and he kind of backed away. Weird. I remembered to put on deodorant. I conducted the entire interview and he just stared at the wall behind my head. Whatever. Some people are just rude. I asked to use the restroom before I left and when I looked in the mirror I could have died. Nut shells and scum were coating my teeth. I looked like I hadn't brushed... ever.
And finally... (Oh, I hate to admit this)... The time when I was in the back of my truck using my handy-dandy bucket and while I was busy taking care of business, my Subject got in his car and left. I looked up. He was gone. Now, you can imagine my report.
"Investigator inadvertantly lost Subject due to drinking a 64oz mug of tea. Efforts to re-establish surveillance were unsuccessful."
No need to sugar-coat it. Yeah. I suppose I could have worded it differently, but this was more fun. I got a call from Joe, my supervisor at the time, who told me that maybe I should leave that portion out. "But we're supposed to explain why we lost the Subject." I complain. "How else am I going to say it without making it sound like I was taking a nap?" I know I am being difficult, but, like I said, this is more fun. Joe is quiet for a minute and then says, "Well, we'll send it up and see what Corporate does with it. Just... you know..stop drinking so much tea."
Like the time I called a Subject's office on pretext and hadn't figured out an alias yet. When Mira Abooboo's secretary asked me to leave a name, I freaked and said, "Sharon...Abooboo...No relation." Gulp. Amazingly, I got away with it because the person I was investigating owned and operated an Indian dress-making shop so her clientelle was primarily Indian.
Or the time that I had a certain home video I'd made that ended up going to Corp instead of the Flanders case. (Ahem.) I got an email from Jethro at the office a few days later commenting on how the camera didn't seem to add ten pounds to me at all... (See Polly's face in a mask of complete and total horror.)
Speaking of work videos... There was the time that I had, apperently, left the camera on for about 20 minutes while it lay in my lap. Corporate got a good laugh out of what they so kindly dubbed "The crotch cam".
Or when I was eating hazelnuts in my truck before going in to an interview with a Subject. I walked up to the door and a big, handsome brute of a man answered. Yum. I smiled at him and he kind of backed away. Weird. I remembered to put on deodorant. I conducted the entire interview and he just stared at the wall behind my head. Whatever. Some people are just rude. I asked to use the restroom before I left and when I looked in the mirror I could have died. Nut shells and scum were coating my teeth. I looked like I hadn't brushed... ever.
And finally... (Oh, I hate to admit this)... The time when I was in the back of my truck using my handy-dandy bucket and while I was busy taking care of business, my Subject got in his car and left. I looked up. He was gone. Now, you can imagine my report.
"Investigator inadvertantly lost Subject due to drinking a 64oz mug of tea. Efforts to re-establish surveillance were unsuccessful."
No need to sugar-coat it. Yeah. I suppose I could have worded it differently, but this was more fun. I got a call from Joe, my supervisor at the time, who told me that maybe I should leave that portion out. "But we're supposed to explain why we lost the Subject." I complain. "How else am I going to say it without making it sound like I was taking a nap?" I know I am being difficult, but, like I said, this is more fun. Joe is quiet for a minute and then says, "Well, we'll send it up and see what Corporate does with it. Just... you know..stop drinking so much tea."
MMMMMM.....MEAT
A sign in the Polish/Italians neighborhood I was undercover in last night. Something tells me this might be worse than deer brains or tripe. 
Thursday, August 11, 2005
8/11/05 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
9:14 a.m. This is the continuation of the story I started last night. I encourage you read the warning I posted there and decide for yourself if you want to read any further. It gets a lot worse.
The next morning I walk into the office and see two NCIS agents from the Navy base. The baby's father was a yeoman on a ship and NCIS was directly involved in what happened to the baby. Apparently, the father was skimming money out of the ship's coffers. NCIS got wind of it and these two agents showed up at the father's house with a warrant for his arrest.
The father let the agents into his house. He was home alone with his little boy. The mother was at work. The agents sat down on the couch and watched the baby toddling around the room while the father confessed.
After several minutes, the father picked up his son and asked the NCIS agents if he could go out on the porch for some air. They didn't see any harm in it and so let him go. But when he got outside, the father bolted.
The agents followed him in foot pursuit and called for backup. They ran several blocks down the street. The agent telling me the story, Agent Gray, looks pained. He says he could hear the little boy crying as they gave chase.
At this point, the ME walks in and tells us she's ready. We all walk over to the autopsy suite as the agents recount, again, what had happened...this time for the benefit of the doc. I see the little boy across the room. The autopsy tech had taken his blankets and his diaper off and was taking photographs.
The ME takes the IV out of the baby's arm. She cuts the bandages off his little head. More pictures. She feels the back of his skull and winces. She says she is shocked that he lived 12 hours after such a traumatic head injury. "He was a fighter," she says quietly.
As the doc works, Agent Gray continues his story. He tells us that the father stopped running when two cop cars blocked the road in front of him. He was surrounded. At this point the little boy was screaming. His father held him up above his head and told the agents not to come any closer or he'd throw the boy down on the concrete.
Agent Gray has a haunted look in his eye. "We stopped," he said. "We stopped but he still did it."
I watch the ME take out a scalpal and reflect the skin off the little boy's head. I suddenly feel nauseous and dizzy. I excuse myself and run to the lady's room down the hall. I sit on the toilet with my head between my legs. Get a grip, Polly. Do your job. I squeeze my eyes shut and will the tears away. There will be time for that later.
I return to the autopsy suite and am shocked to see the baby's skull. Hematomas and fractures all over. I am dizzy again and I have just enough time to say, "I'm going to faint." The two agents run up and grab me just as the world turns mercifully black around me.
I wake up on the cold floor. Several faces are circling above me. Brunhilda is there and makes a joke that I must have had too much to drink last night. I am mortified.
A few minutes later Brunhilda walks me over to the investigative section. I sit in a chair and put my feet up on my desk. Brunhilda brings me a cold glass of water before heading back to the other side. I take a sip and stare out the window for a long time before the telephone rings and I'm pulled back into life.
The next morning I walk into the office and see two NCIS agents from the Navy base. The baby's father was a yeoman on a ship and NCIS was directly involved in what happened to the baby. Apparently, the father was skimming money out of the ship's coffers. NCIS got wind of it and these two agents showed up at the father's house with a warrant for his arrest.
The father let the agents into his house. He was home alone with his little boy. The mother was at work. The agents sat down on the couch and watched the baby toddling around the room while the father confessed.
After several minutes, the father picked up his son and asked the NCIS agents if he could go out on the porch for some air. They didn't see any harm in it and so let him go. But when he got outside, the father bolted.
The agents followed him in foot pursuit and called for backup. They ran several blocks down the street. The agent telling me the story, Agent Gray, looks pained. He says he could hear the little boy crying as they gave chase.
At this point, the ME walks in and tells us she's ready. We all walk over to the autopsy suite as the agents recount, again, what had happened...this time for the benefit of the doc. I see the little boy across the room. The autopsy tech had taken his blankets and his diaper off and was taking photographs.
The ME takes the IV out of the baby's arm. She cuts the bandages off his little head. More pictures. She feels the back of his skull and winces. She says she is shocked that he lived 12 hours after such a traumatic head injury. "He was a fighter," she says quietly.
As the doc works, Agent Gray continues his story. He tells us that the father stopped running when two cop cars blocked the road in front of him. He was surrounded. At this point the little boy was screaming. His father held him up above his head and told the agents not to come any closer or he'd throw the boy down on the concrete.
Agent Gray has a haunted look in his eye. "We stopped," he said. "We stopped but he still did it."
I watch the ME take out a scalpal and reflect the skin off the little boy's head. I suddenly feel nauseous and dizzy. I excuse myself and run to the lady's room down the hall. I sit on the toilet with my head between my legs. Get a grip, Polly. Do your job. I squeeze my eyes shut and will the tears away. There will be time for that later.
I return to the autopsy suite and am shocked to see the baby's skull. Hematomas and fractures all over. I am dizzy again and I have just enough time to say, "I'm going to faint." The two agents run up and grab me just as the world turns mercifully black around me.
I wake up on the cold floor. Several faces are circling above me. Brunhilda is there and makes a joke that I must have had too much to drink last night. I am mortified.
A few minutes later Brunhilda walks me over to the investigative section. I sit in a chair and put my feet up on my desk. Brunhilda brings me a cold glass of water before heading back to the other side. I take a sip and stare out the window for a long time before the telephone rings and I'm pulled back into life.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
8/10/05b WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
9:37 p.m. I wasn't going to write about this case. No good feelings will come of it. It was the only time I ever fainted. It was the only time I totally lost it.
I never shared this with anybody and for good reason. There is no respite for a death investigator, you see. We are filled with stories of heartache and have no outlet except with each other. I even went to see a counselor years ago because I felt like I had to talk to somebody, but I could see in the doc's eyes that it was too much for her, so I had pity on her and stopped going... Besides, her solution was to teach me how to hypnotize myself into accepting the garbage that was coming into my heart and head without reacting emotionally. I found that patently unappealing. How can you grow from something if you don't allow yourself to feel it?
So, I'm writing these things down now mostly for the selfish reason that I have kept it inside for years and I don't want to anymore. And still, even after all that I will tell you, I assure you there are things floating around in my head so disturbing that I will never share them with anyone. Ever.
This case involves a child murder victim so if you don't feel like you can handle reading about it, I encourage you to stop right now. Remember that the images that I am about to present to you will stay with you forever. You will replay them in your mind over and over.
Consider yourself warned.
I am sitting at the computer writing an email to Olga. I am telling her about the people I work with. It's a pretty funny email. I talk about the butch lesbian who has a crush on Brunhilda. I talk about the gruff old guy who lost his front tooth two days ago and looks like a homeless vagrant. Suffice it to say, it's late at night and I am bored. I'm the only one at the morgue. And I have three hours to go before I can head home to my bed.
At around 10:45 p.m. I get a call from the hospital. The head nurse tells me that a toddler has died and we need to pick him up for autopsy. She tells me the details of the case and my hands start to shake as I write. A little boy. 18 months old. His father killed him. Head trauma.
I don't bother calling Dwight. The hospital is a few hundred feet from the MEO and babies can be transported in the Explorer.
I don't pack any gloves. I won't need them. I don't want them. Babies shouldn't be held with gloves.
I drive up to the emergency entrance and park the Explorer in the pick-up area. I go inside and a nurse points me to the morgue. A technician is there with medical records in hand. He gives them to me, asks me to sign a release form, and leaves the room.
The little boy is lying on a gurney. It is huge compared to his little body. He looks so peaceful lying there. His chubby little cheeks are pale and creamy and his head, what isn't wrapped in bandages, is full of dark brown curls. The IV is still in his hand and I get an overwhelming urge to remove it. That must hurt. But I can't. All of the puncture wounds, marks, abrasions, bruises...need to be documented thoroughly by the ME.
I brush my hand down his cold cheek. I watch his chest for movement. He's not breathing. Damn it.
I place the records in my bag and take out a white sheet. I carefully swaddle the little boy, cradling him in my arms. I carry him out of the building and as I walk toward the Explorer a woman says to me, "I thought you had a baby there for a second." I look her in the eyes, but say nothing as I open the door and slide into the front seat with my precious bundle.
I carry the little boy on my lap as I drive back to the morgue. It feels so natural. The weight of him. The way he feels in my arms. I am holding him like any mother holds her child. Except that he's dead.
There is a tray in the receiving area outside of the cooler. I place him on it. With little children we take full hand and foot prints. I prepare the ink pad and print card. As I work, I begin singing a lullaby. I know it's stupid. He can't hear me. But he will be so cold soon in the cooler.
You came from a land
Where all is light
To a world half day
And a world half night.
To guard you by day
You have my love
And to guard you by night
Your friends above
So sleep
Sleep
Till the darkness ends
Guarded by your angel friends
So sleep
Sleep
Till the darkness ends
Guarded by your angel friends
I wrap the sheet around him tight...it's so cold in there... and push him into the cooler. Shift will change soon. I'm so very tired. I just want to sleep. But I have to be here at 8am, so I will only get a few hours. I hate leaving him here. I know it's not rational, but I still hate it.
I walk out of the cooler and purposely leave the light on.
I will write the rest of this tomorrow. It's late.
I never shared this with anybody and for good reason. There is no respite for a death investigator, you see. We are filled with stories of heartache and have no outlet except with each other. I even went to see a counselor years ago because I felt like I had to talk to somebody, but I could see in the doc's eyes that it was too much for her, so I had pity on her and stopped going... Besides, her solution was to teach me how to hypnotize myself into accepting the garbage that was coming into my heart and head without reacting emotionally. I found that patently unappealing. How can you grow from something if you don't allow yourself to feel it?
So, I'm writing these things down now mostly for the selfish reason that I have kept it inside for years and I don't want to anymore. And still, even after all that I will tell you, I assure you there are things floating around in my head so disturbing that I will never share them with anyone. Ever.
This case involves a child murder victim so if you don't feel like you can handle reading about it, I encourage you to stop right now. Remember that the images that I am about to present to you will stay with you forever. You will replay them in your mind over and over.
Consider yourself warned.
I am sitting at the computer writing an email to Olga. I am telling her about the people I work with. It's a pretty funny email. I talk about the butch lesbian who has a crush on Brunhilda. I talk about the gruff old guy who lost his front tooth two days ago and looks like a homeless vagrant. Suffice it to say, it's late at night and I am bored. I'm the only one at the morgue. And I have three hours to go before I can head home to my bed.
At around 10:45 p.m. I get a call from the hospital. The head nurse tells me that a toddler has died and we need to pick him up for autopsy. She tells me the details of the case and my hands start to shake as I write. A little boy. 18 months old. His father killed him. Head trauma.
I don't bother calling Dwight. The hospital is a few hundred feet from the MEO and babies can be transported in the Explorer.
I don't pack any gloves. I won't need them. I don't want them. Babies shouldn't be held with gloves.
I drive up to the emergency entrance and park the Explorer in the pick-up area. I go inside and a nurse points me to the morgue. A technician is there with medical records in hand. He gives them to me, asks me to sign a release form, and leaves the room.
The little boy is lying on a gurney. It is huge compared to his little body. He looks so peaceful lying there. His chubby little cheeks are pale and creamy and his head, what isn't wrapped in bandages, is full of dark brown curls. The IV is still in his hand and I get an overwhelming urge to remove it. That must hurt. But I can't. All of the puncture wounds, marks, abrasions, bruises...need to be documented thoroughly by the ME.
I brush my hand down his cold cheek. I watch his chest for movement. He's not breathing. Damn it.
I place the records in my bag and take out a white sheet. I carefully swaddle the little boy, cradling him in my arms. I carry him out of the building and as I walk toward the Explorer a woman says to me, "I thought you had a baby there for a second." I look her in the eyes, but say nothing as I open the door and slide into the front seat with my precious bundle.
I carry the little boy on my lap as I drive back to the morgue. It feels so natural. The weight of him. The way he feels in my arms. I am holding him like any mother holds her child. Except that he's dead.
There is a tray in the receiving area outside of the cooler. I place him on it. With little children we take full hand and foot prints. I prepare the ink pad and print card. As I work, I begin singing a lullaby. I know it's stupid. He can't hear me. But he will be so cold soon in the cooler.
You came from a land
Where all is light
To a world half day
And a world half night.
To guard you by day
You have my love
And to guard you by night
Your friends above
So sleep
Sleep
Till the darkness ends
Guarded by your angel friends
So sleep
Sleep
Till the darkness ends
Guarded by your angel friends
I wrap the sheet around him tight...it's so cold in there... and push him into the cooler. Shift will change soon. I'm so very tired. I just want to sleep. But I have to be here at 8am, so I will only get a few hours. I hate leaving him here. I know it's not rational, but I still hate it.
I walk out of the cooler and purposely leave the light on.
I will write the rest of this tomorrow. It's late.
8/10/05a
12:45 p.m. Good news!! It is NOT a gay bar and it's in an Italian neighborhood. I LOVE Italians! I am not sure Diasy Dukes and a cowboy hat/scarf ensemble would be appropriate for this place. It's kind of a dive. I went in and looked around. The bar maid looks like she was rode hard and put away wet.
8/10/05
8:22 a.m. I'm outside of a Citgo gas station on the west side of Chicago today. This is a great place to set up because the Citgo has a Subway sandwich shop in it (lunch) and there is a real bathroom just a few feet away if the need should arise. The west side is a pretty good area. Maybe a five on the Scary Neighborhood Scale (SNS). The guy I'm surveilling lives in a two-story brick apartment building next door.
This should be an interesting case. Subject reportedly owns and operates a night club downtown. I'm supposed to return tomorrow night and hang out in the club pretending I'm trolling for men. It should be fun...depending on what type of club it is, I suppose. It would be just my luck if it were a gay bar. In which case I'd be trolling for women? Or I could pretend I'm a really excellent female impersonator. I'd get all the rest of the female impersonators jealous.
More later....
This should be an interesting case. Subject reportedly owns and operates a night club downtown. I'm supposed to return tomorrow night and hang out in the club pretending I'm trolling for men. It should be fun...depending on what type of club it is, I suppose. It would be just my luck if it were a gay bar. In which case I'd be trolling for women? Or I could pretend I'm a really excellent female impersonator. I'd get all the rest of the female impersonators jealous.
More later....
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
8/9/05 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
4:16 a.m. Today is my last day on this central Wisconsin case. Nothing at all happened yesterday. There was no vehicle in the drive. No lights on. Not even a dog running around. I'm wondering if the guy is on vacation, but I can't call because my client is forbidding phone and physical contact.
I take a sip of my tea and watch the sun rising through my rearview mirror. I consider how long I should hang around this morning if there is still no activity. Probably until 10am. I am very much looking forward to getting home. I really hope I remembered to take out the garbage before I left this time...
Well, I thought I'd talk about fire deaths today. There were always a lot of them in the short winter months of north Florida. People brought out old space heaters that would fall over in the night or have frayed cords from rodents chewing on them all summer. Or they would place them right next to the bed and the blankets would start on fire.
To compound the problem many of the old houses downtown had been converted from large homes to several small apartments with bars on the windows to keep criminals out. Unfortunately, those bars would also succeed in keeping people in during a house fire. And those dry wood-frame structures, after a century or more of the hot Florida sun, would go up in a fury of flames that left precious little time for those inside to get out.
The first housefire case I went on was an old mobile home that somebody had placed on a small parcel of land near a dirty little stream. There were a few neighbors who had the same idea so that a make-shift trailer park was the result. I drive down the long dirt road that leads to the site and before it even comes into view I smell the acrid tang of burnt paint and metal.
As I approach, I note that, for the most part, the roof and walls of the trailer no longer exist. Everything is soaking wet. Forensically speaking, a housefire is a very difficult case. What evidence isn't destroyed by the fire is destroyed or altered in the firefighting effort.
I step out of the Explorer, cross the police line and walk toward the house. I slosh through puddles of standing water and curse as I feel the mud sneaking in through the laces of my shoes. Smoke is still rises from beneath the remaining floorboards and I note melted insulation pooled in random blobs among the rubble. Portions of framework poke up in jagged points like broken bone, intimating the basic floorplan of the interior. A bedroom. A kitchen. Another bedroom. A family room.
I join Det. Grizzly near and the chief from the fire department. There are two vics inside. Fire appears to have started in the kitchen. The fireman shows us the v-shaped burn pattern above the stove and the scaly texture of the remaining wood that indicate the point of origin. We speculate that the owner of the trailer was cold and had no heater so he turned on the oven and left the door open. This is a popular (and extremely dangerous) way of heating a residence in north Florida, unfortunately.
Sometime in the middle of the night the fire broke out. The owner's body is still lying in the hallway, facedown. I can barely tell there's a person there. He just blends in with the rest of the black, burnt surroundings. I hope he wasn't burned alive and that he died of smoke inhalation, but I suspect that was not the case. He didn't jump out the window, so I think that he must have been trying ot get to the second victim, his brother. The brother is still in the bed of the second bedroom. Evidence suggests that this was the last area the fire reached. I wonder to myself how he could have slept through the rucus that must have been going on around him until I note the empty liter jug of vodka next to the bed.
Dwight shows up and for once, he is not expected to bring out the bodies. The structure is too dangerous and the firefighters will have to go in. The first body is brought out. It is a truly macabre sight. Fabric from his jeans is burned into the blackened flesh of his legs. Muscles have contract under the heat of the fire so that his hands are curled back into claws and his mouth is agape. His lips have been burned off so that he appears to be snarling. And his eyelids are gone so that his shriveled eyeballs stare out blankly at the sky. His ears are charred nubs and most of the skin on his head is gone except for a patch that was protected by his arm...there a tuft of brown hair and scalp still remain. The suture lines in the skull have opened somewhat as the bone shrank under the intense heat. It smells like barbecue and burned hair and I almost wretch.
As the second body is pulled from the ashes on a stretcher, I notice that a woman and her two children are standing at the fence in the next yard, watching silently. My blood boils. Why would somebody let their kids see such a horrible thing?
I direct two patrol officers to hold up a sheet to block the view while an evidence technician and I walk over to the fence. The tech is as angry as I am and she says, "Could you please take your children inside, ma'am? This is not something kids should be seeing." The woman is heavy. She's got red hair and pale, pale skin. She looks at us contemptuously and replies, "But my husband sent us outside so he could sleep." Images of abuse fill my mind and I immediately start searching her exposed skin for bruises. "Just take them away from here, please." I say more kindly.
The kids stare up at us silently. They look bored, if you can imagine. Like they'd been around the block a few times and this was just another day. The woman heads to the front of the house and yells at her children to follow her. The kids silently turn and walk away.
I take a sip of my tea and watch the sun rising through my rearview mirror. I consider how long I should hang around this morning if there is still no activity. Probably until 10am. I am very much looking forward to getting home. I really hope I remembered to take out the garbage before I left this time...
Well, I thought I'd talk about fire deaths today. There were always a lot of them in the short winter months of north Florida. People brought out old space heaters that would fall over in the night or have frayed cords from rodents chewing on them all summer. Or they would place them right next to the bed and the blankets would start on fire.
To compound the problem many of the old houses downtown had been converted from large homes to several small apartments with bars on the windows to keep criminals out. Unfortunately, those bars would also succeed in keeping people in during a house fire. And those dry wood-frame structures, after a century or more of the hot Florida sun, would go up in a fury of flames that left precious little time for those inside to get out.
The first housefire case I went on was an old mobile home that somebody had placed on a small parcel of land near a dirty little stream. There were a few neighbors who had the same idea so that a make-shift trailer park was the result. I drive down the long dirt road that leads to the site and before it even comes into view I smell the acrid tang of burnt paint and metal.
As I approach, I note that, for the most part, the roof and walls of the trailer no longer exist. Everything is soaking wet. Forensically speaking, a housefire is a very difficult case. What evidence isn't destroyed by the fire is destroyed or altered in the firefighting effort.
I step out of the Explorer, cross the police line and walk toward the house. I slosh through puddles of standing water and curse as I feel the mud sneaking in through the laces of my shoes. Smoke is still rises from beneath the remaining floorboards and I note melted insulation pooled in random blobs among the rubble. Portions of framework poke up in jagged points like broken bone, intimating the basic floorplan of the interior. A bedroom. A kitchen. Another bedroom. A family room.
I join Det. Grizzly near and the chief from the fire department. There are two vics inside. Fire appears to have started in the kitchen. The fireman shows us the v-shaped burn pattern above the stove and the scaly texture of the remaining wood that indicate the point of origin. We speculate that the owner of the trailer was cold and had no heater so he turned on the oven and left the door open. This is a popular (and extremely dangerous) way of heating a residence in north Florida, unfortunately.
Sometime in the middle of the night the fire broke out. The owner's body is still lying in the hallway, facedown. I can barely tell there's a person there. He just blends in with the rest of the black, burnt surroundings. I hope he wasn't burned alive and that he died of smoke inhalation, but I suspect that was not the case. He didn't jump out the window, so I think that he must have been trying ot get to the second victim, his brother. The brother is still in the bed of the second bedroom. Evidence suggests that this was the last area the fire reached. I wonder to myself how he could have slept through the rucus that must have been going on around him until I note the empty liter jug of vodka next to the bed.
Dwight shows up and for once, he is not expected to bring out the bodies. The structure is too dangerous and the firefighters will have to go in. The first body is brought out. It is a truly macabre sight. Fabric from his jeans is burned into the blackened flesh of his legs. Muscles have contract under the heat of the fire so that his hands are curled back into claws and his mouth is agape. His lips have been burned off so that he appears to be snarling. And his eyelids are gone so that his shriveled eyeballs stare out blankly at the sky. His ears are charred nubs and most of the skin on his head is gone except for a patch that was protected by his arm...there a tuft of brown hair and scalp still remain. The suture lines in the skull have opened somewhat as the bone shrank under the intense heat. It smells like barbecue and burned hair and I almost wretch.
As the second body is pulled from the ashes on a stretcher, I notice that a woman and her two children are standing at the fence in the next yard, watching silently. My blood boils. Why would somebody let their kids see such a horrible thing?
I direct two patrol officers to hold up a sheet to block the view while an evidence technician and I walk over to the fence. The tech is as angry as I am and she says, "Could you please take your children inside, ma'am? This is not something kids should be seeing." The woman is heavy. She's got red hair and pale, pale skin. She looks at us contemptuously and replies, "But my husband sent us outside so he could sleep." Images of abuse fill my mind and I immediately start searching her exposed skin for bruises. "Just take them away from here, please." I say more kindly.
The kids stare up at us silently. They look bored, if you can imagine. Like they'd been around the block a few times and this was just another day. The woman heads to the front of the house and yells at her children to follow her. The kids silently turn and walk away.
Monday, August 08, 2005
8/8/05
Well, hell's bells! The pix are uploading. (Slowly)
More to come, folks...
P.S. Safety Dance is playing on the radio and I have this incredible urge to do the Robot.
More to come, folks...
P.S. Safety Dance is playing on the radio and I have this incredible urge to do the Robot.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
8/7/05a
I got the Anna Nalick CD before I left today. I should stop getting new CD's for my long road trips. I end up getting far too introspective. I stop at a McDonald's and sit in the parking lot listening to "In My Head" over and over again.
Under the weight of your wings
You are a god and whatever I want you to be
And I wonder if truly you are
Nearly as beautiful as I believe
In my head
Your voice
You've got all that I need
And this make-believe
Will get me through another lonely night
I don't want to be fool-hearted
Baby, I'm outnumbered in my head
Under the weight of your wings
I make believe you are all that I'll ever need
All that I need
I love this song. It gives me hope. Reminds me of what I'm waiting for...that person that won't disappoint me after the dust settles. I still believe in that, despite what I've been through. Heaven help the man that ends up with me, though. He'll have his hands full.
I sigh and shut off the stereo. I lock up the car and walk across the parking lot. It is hot and the sun is beating down on me. I'm looking forward to a strawberry milkshake. Yum. As I walk, my eyes almost immediately land on a giant statue of a chicken with a bib and a chef's hat sitting right in front of a Dairy Queen. Well, that's interesting. A hungry chicken. I smile because the Chicken Chef reminds me of a statue I saw yesterday in northern Minnesota. This one was a polar bear with its right front paw on the back of an arctic seal. It appeared to be preparing to dispatch the fuzzy little guy and eat him for lunch. Who thinks of these things? How would a parent explain that to a child? "See, Johnny? Isn't nature beautiful? See how the polar bear is getting ready to eat the cute little innocent seal?...Why are you crying, Johnny? It's the Circle of Life and all that...Remember the Lion King?....Oh, stop...You should have seen what it was like when I was a kid...MY parents made me watch baby seals being clubbed to death by Precilla Presley on Those Amazing Animals..."
I am in the McDonald's bathroom now. I prefer McDonald's bathrooms because the stalls in the ladies rooms go all the way down to the floor...nobody can reach under and swipe my purse...or worse, no curious little two-year-old will peak under the door and get an eyeful of something that will surely lead to years of psychotherapy later on.
I notice that the toilet has not been flushed. Gross. I make a face and push down the handle. Almost immediately I note that the water is rising like the Mississippi in springtime. Oh dear. I look around the side of the commode and attempt to turn the water supply off but the handle is too tight. Aack! Icky crap water begins to overflow and I scamper out of the stall in a panic. I burst out of the ladies room and make a run for it.
I am about 2 miles down the freeway before I stop to think what an idiot I am. What did I think they would do? Arrest me? Make me clean it up? And I still have to go to the bathroom...
Under the weight of your wings
You are a god and whatever I want you to be
And I wonder if truly you are
Nearly as beautiful as I believe
In my head
Your voice
You've got all that I need
And this make-believe
Will get me through another lonely night
I don't want to be fool-hearted
Baby, I'm outnumbered in my head
Under the weight of your wings
I make believe you are all that I'll ever need
All that I need
I love this song. It gives me hope. Reminds me of what I'm waiting for...that person that won't disappoint me after the dust settles. I still believe in that, despite what I've been through. Heaven help the man that ends up with me, though. He'll have his hands full.
I sigh and shut off the stereo. I lock up the car and walk across the parking lot. It is hot and the sun is beating down on me. I'm looking forward to a strawberry milkshake. Yum. As I walk, my eyes almost immediately land on a giant statue of a chicken with a bib and a chef's hat sitting right in front of a Dairy Queen. Well, that's interesting. A hungry chicken. I smile because the Chicken Chef reminds me of a statue I saw yesterday in northern Minnesota. This one was a polar bear with its right front paw on the back of an arctic seal. It appeared to be preparing to dispatch the fuzzy little guy and eat him for lunch. Who thinks of these things? How would a parent explain that to a child? "See, Johnny? Isn't nature beautiful? See how the polar bear is getting ready to eat the cute little innocent seal?...Why are you crying, Johnny? It's the Circle of Life and all that...Remember the Lion King?....Oh, stop...You should have seen what it was like when I was a kid...MY parents made me watch baby seals being clubbed to death by Precilla Presley on Those Amazing Animals..."
I am in the McDonald's bathroom now. I prefer McDonald's bathrooms because the stalls in the ladies rooms go all the way down to the floor...nobody can reach under and swipe my purse...or worse, no curious little two-year-old will peak under the door and get an eyeful of something that will surely lead to years of psychotherapy later on.
I notice that the toilet has not been flushed. Gross. I make a face and push down the handle. Almost immediately I note that the water is rising like the Mississippi in springtime. Oh dear. I look around the side of the commode and attempt to turn the water supply off but the handle is too tight. Aack! Icky crap water begins to overflow and I scamper out of the stall in a panic. I burst out of the ladies room and make a run for it.
I am about 2 miles down the freeway before I stop to think what an idiot I am. What did I think they would do? Arrest me? Make me clean it up? And I still have to go to the bathroom...
8/7/05
6:42 a.m. I am back at my parents house. Just a pit stop on my way down to a job in the middle of Wisconsin. Two days there and then I'm going home. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again.
Thief River Falls (as you will see in the pictures) was quite something. Peri and I had a great time frolicking in the fields and playing with the deer and the antelope. (Were those antelope?) Peri is a much better frolicker than I am. I was jealous of her technique. She told me she had a lot of practice in her youth as she and her friends in high school used to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and then go frolicking. Apparently, it's like riding a bike...
Anyway, I'll finish up where I left off with the good doctor. I show up to my OBGYN appointment using my favorite "Sharon Johnson" alias. The nurse hands me a New Patient Questionnaire and I can feel the devil horns extending out the top of my head. I smile and sit down. (I also swipe a copy for my own personal use.)
Now let's see...
MY PROBLEM: This is an essay question and I feel like I should elaborate, but I only write, "Routine Check-up."
DO YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER HAD:
Hot Flashes: Y
Breast Discharge: Y
Visual Disturbances: Depends
Poor Sense of Smell: How do you tell?
Chronic Headaches: N
Head Trauma: N
Seizures: N
Thyroid Disorder: N
Extraordinary Stress: Y
Rigorous Exercise Program: Y
Increased Facial or Body Hair: I'm Eastern European. What do you think? I just take a NAIR dip every couple of weeks.
Increased Acne: N
Special Dietary Habits: I have a mostly liquid diet.
Vomiting: Only when I've had too much liquid.
Diabetes: N
Autoimmune Disease: N
Psychiatric Treatment: ?
SEXUAL HISTORY:
How many months have you been having intercourse without using any form of birth control? I'm 30 years old... so that would be...204.
How many times do you have intercourse per week? ____ times per week ___None ___Not applicable Let's see.... I'm 30 years old...204 months...4 weeks in a month...That's 816. Wait. That's not right..
Do you use lubricants (K-Y Jelly, etc...) during intercourse? (I left that one blank.)
Do you have questions you would like to discuss about your sexual life? (I left that one blank, too.)
Have you had any of the following sexually transmitted diseases or pelvic infections?
Chlamydia: Y
Gonorrhea: Y
Syphilis: Y
Herpes: Y
Genital warts/HPV: Y
Hepatitis: What's that?
HIV/AIDS: N
Other: I've had a couple of times were things weren't right down there, but I took some left-over antibiotics and it went away.
Total number of all pregnancies: I've got 6 babies. (All the same daddy.)
I hand in my questionnaire and sit back down to wait. The nurse is reading it over an I can see her raising her eyebrows. She takes the paper and walks out of view. About 5 minutes later I get called back to see the doc. I am told to take my clothes off and get into a gown. In a stroke of genius, I tell the nurse I'm having my period and she tells me to just take my shirt off, then. There will be no pelvic exam today. Phew!
Several minutes later, the doctor comes in. She is an older lady. Very heavy. She hobbles into the room with a smile and introduces herself. She asks me why I'm here today and I tell her it's just for a check up. She says that I've got quite a history and she can't believe I've got so many children and look so fit. I tell her I exercise a lot and she says that anybody who has sexual intercourse 816 times a week should be VERY fit. I laugh. I hate it when I start to like bad guys.
Anyway, before I can leave, I get a lecture on using contraception and condoms and I am given a prescription for birth control pills. Apparently, the good doctor thinks that 6 little Sharon Johnsons running around is more than enough...
Thief River Falls (as you will see in the pictures) was quite something. Peri and I had a great time frolicking in the fields and playing with the deer and the antelope. (Were those antelope?) Peri is a much better frolicker than I am. I was jealous of her technique. She told me she had a lot of practice in her youth as she and her friends in high school used to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and then go frolicking. Apparently, it's like riding a bike...
Anyway, I'll finish up where I left off with the good doctor. I show up to my OBGYN appointment using my favorite "Sharon Johnson" alias. The nurse hands me a New Patient Questionnaire and I can feel the devil horns extending out the top of my head. I smile and sit down. (I also swipe a copy for my own personal use.)
Now let's see...
MY PROBLEM: This is an essay question and I feel like I should elaborate, but I only write, "Routine Check-up."
DO YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER HAD:
Hot Flashes: Y
Breast Discharge: Y
Visual Disturbances: Depends
Poor Sense of Smell: How do you tell?
Chronic Headaches: N
Head Trauma: N
Seizures: N
Thyroid Disorder: N
Extraordinary Stress: Y
Rigorous Exercise Program: Y
Increased Facial or Body Hair: I'm Eastern European. What do you think? I just take a NAIR dip every couple of weeks.
Increased Acne: N
Special Dietary Habits: I have a mostly liquid diet.
Vomiting: Only when I've had too much liquid.
Diabetes: N
Autoimmune Disease: N
Psychiatric Treatment: ?
SEXUAL HISTORY:
How many months have you been having intercourse without using any form of birth control? I'm 30 years old... so that would be...204.
How many times do you have intercourse per week? ____ times per week ___None ___Not applicable Let's see.... I'm 30 years old...204 months...4 weeks in a month...That's 816. Wait. That's not right..
Do you use lubricants (K-Y Jelly, etc...) during intercourse? (I left that one blank.)
Do you have questions you would like to discuss about your sexual life? (I left that one blank, too.)
Have you had any of the following sexually transmitted diseases or pelvic infections?
Chlamydia: Y
Gonorrhea: Y
Syphilis: Y
Herpes: Y
Genital warts/HPV: Y
Hepatitis: What's that?
HIV/AIDS: N
Other: I've had a couple of times were things weren't right down there, but I took some left-over antibiotics and it went away.
Total number of all pregnancies: I've got 6 babies. (All the same daddy.)
I hand in my questionnaire and sit back down to wait. The nurse is reading it over an I can see her raising her eyebrows. She takes the paper and walks out of view. About 5 minutes later I get called back to see the doc. I am told to take my clothes off and get into a gown. In a stroke of genius, I tell the nurse I'm having my period and she tells me to just take my shirt off, then. There will be no pelvic exam today. Phew!
Several minutes later, the doctor comes in. She is an older lady. Very heavy. She hobbles into the room with a smile and introduces herself. She asks me why I'm here today and I tell her it's just for a check up. She says that I've got quite a history and she can't believe I've got so many children and look so fit. I tell her I exercise a lot and she says that anybody who has sexual intercourse 816 times a week should be VERY fit. I laugh. I hate it when I start to like bad guys.
Anyway, before I can leave, I get a lecture on using contraception and condoms and I am given a prescription for birth control pills. Apparently, the good doctor thinks that 6 little Sharon Johnsons running around is more than enough...
Saturday, August 06, 2005
MESSAGE FROM THIEF RIVER FALLS LOCK UP
Oh my gosh! Somebody send some bail money quick! And tell these people that Canadians are out of season and they're not allowed to tar and feather me! The last time I saw Polly she was trying to explain to security at the casino where she was getting all those aces from.
Not sure if I'm getting out alive,
Peri
Not sure if I'm getting out alive,
Peri
Friday, August 05, 2005
8/5/05
10:22 a.m. I found out my Subject is for sure working at the local hospital. I went inside to look around but the good doc is cloistered safely behind the receptionist's desk.
So, I called and made an appointment for an OB check-up (OH THE THINGS I DO TO CRACK A CASE) at 1pm.
I better get extra pay for this...
So, I called and made an appointment for an OB check-up (OH THE THINGS I DO TO CRACK A CASE) at 1pm.
I better get extra pay for this...
8/5/05
6:52 a.m. It was 50 degrees when I woke up this morning. It's August. That ain't right. Luckily I have a sweatshirt in the back of my truck. I throw it on and drive away from the hotel/casino/waterpark that I am staying at. It's about 10 miles down the road from my Subject's house and as I drive, the sun peeks up over the horizon. I like it when I'm around for sunrise. It makes me feel like I didn't miss out on anything as the day goes on.
Subject's house is a modest chalet-style residence...one of those places with a roof so steep that you'd just LOVE to go sliding down it in winter. Or at least I would. There are two vehicles parked in the driveway, but the sedan is in front of the SUV so I can't run the plate.
My Subject is an OBGYN. She's claiming total disability, but the insurance company thinks that she's working at a local clinic. I've been here since 6am and still no movement. Of course, a lot of doctor's offices don't open until 9am or so. I'm wondering, if she leaves and drives to the clinic, how far I should take this thing to be sure Subject is really working. I told Peri that I might have to wire her and send her inside tomorrow for a PAP smear...
This is a pretty small town. There is a large Native American population as we are near the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The houses are older...built between 1900 and 1950. When I called the cops this morning to give them the heads up I'm here, it took 12 rings for somebody to answer. I told the officer who answered that I was a private investigator...blah, blah, blah. I don't think there's ever been a private investigator in Thief River Falls before. The officer just sat there. "Oh...wow. Who are you investigating?" I told him I couldn't disclose that for privacy reasons. He said, "Oh...okay." Silence. I think I must have woken him up. Either that or he's not too quick on the uptake.
"Well," I say, "Do you want to know my name and my license plate number and what I drive?"
"I guess." He answers back. "Why do I need that?" Oh, for the love of Pete.
"In case a someone calls to report a strange vehicle in the neighborhood then you will know why and you won't drive out here and blow my cover."
"Okay. Yeah."
I tell him my information but I suspect he didn't bother writing anything down. I apologize for disturbing his nap and hang up.
About 20 minutes later a cop drives by. I figured that would happen. I imagine I'll have at least 3 more drive-bys before the day is out.
I am going to call around to local clinics this morning and inquire for Dr. Subject. See if maybe I get a hit.
More later...
Subject's house is a modest chalet-style residence...one of those places with a roof so steep that you'd just LOVE to go sliding down it in winter. Or at least I would. There are two vehicles parked in the driveway, but the sedan is in front of the SUV so I can't run the plate.
My Subject is an OBGYN. She's claiming total disability, but the insurance company thinks that she's working at a local clinic. I've been here since 6am and still no movement. Of course, a lot of doctor's offices don't open until 9am or so. I'm wondering, if she leaves and drives to the clinic, how far I should take this thing to be sure Subject is really working. I told Peri that I might have to wire her and send her inside tomorrow for a PAP smear...
This is a pretty small town. There is a large Native American population as we are near the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The houses are older...built between 1900 and 1950. When I called the cops this morning to give them the heads up I'm here, it took 12 rings for somebody to answer. I told the officer who answered that I was a private investigator...blah, blah, blah. I don't think there's ever been a private investigator in Thief River Falls before. The officer just sat there. "Oh...wow. Who are you investigating?" I told him I couldn't disclose that for privacy reasons. He said, "Oh...okay." Silence. I think I must have woken him up. Either that or he's not too quick on the uptake.
"Well," I say, "Do you want to know my name and my license plate number and what I drive?"
"I guess." He answers back. "Why do I need that?" Oh, for the love of Pete.
"In case a someone calls to report a strange vehicle in the neighborhood then you will know why and you won't drive out here and blow my cover."
"Okay. Yeah."
I tell him my information but I suspect he didn't bother writing anything down. I apologize for disturbing his nap and hang up.
About 20 minutes later a cop drives by. I figured that would happen. I imagine I'll have at least 3 more drive-bys before the day is out.
I am going to call around to local clinics this morning and inquire for Dr. Subject. See if maybe I get a hit.
More later...
Thursday, August 04, 2005
8/4/05
6:59 a.m. We had some terrible storms last night. I forget sometimes how fierce the weather can be out here on the Great Plains. I woke up around 2am to the bright, almost non-stop flash of lightening through my bedroom window. The rumble and crash of the thunder rolled over me like waves. I was disoriented and it took me a moment to realize where I was. I was at Mom and Dad's. And I had been dreaming. They weren't exactly good dreams, either. I was unsettled. I lay back on my pillow and looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember what had disturbed me so.
The first image I remember was of a jar. It was about half full of peanut butter. In my dream, I gazed into the jar and was sickened to see blood swirled in with the food. Then the dream changed and I was lying on my back in the tall grass of a swamp. My body was partially submerged in shallow water from my chest down. I couldn't move...could only stare up at the blue sky. I suddenly realized I was a corpse. I had been murdered. And with that realization I rose above myself and looked down. From that moment, I would switch back and forth from observing from above to being inside my lifeless body.
There were bugs skittering across my legs and I felt the sharp pinch of crabs chewing on my fingertips. I knew it must be at least 80 degrees, but I was so, so cold. I hate being cold. I could hear the brush moving and caught glimpses of blue uniforms. Investigators were searching for me. Finally, somebody spotted me. "Over here guys! I found it."
A middle-aged cop stood over me, gazing into my vacant, dead eyes. Eyes that never closed because at the moment of death they were open in shock and fear. I was covered in blood and dirt and my leg was turned in an unnatural way. I knew it was very, very broken.
Then the dream flashed into a completely different scene. I was in my mother's garden. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I could hear bees buzzing around the flowers as I sat on the ground, concentrating on the contents of a glass of water. I was busy making a bird, you see. Yes, making. I was creating a beautiful yellow chick inside the glass. I didn't know quite how I was doing it, but eventually I finished and watched the little bird surface. I picked it up and cupped it in my hand. And as I gazed at the bird, I felt a sudden, fierce love for it. I wanted to nurture it. It was life and it was good.
Freud would have a field day with that. He'd pobably say I was stuck in the oral phase and wasn't breastfed long enough. (Thanks a lot, Mom.)
This morning I am headed up to Theif River Falls where I will be working a case, but more importantly, I'll be meeting Peri! She and I will go out and play on Friday night. We are still hopeful that we can find a mechanical bull, but barring that we'll settle for a goat or maybe a small elk.
The first image I remember was of a jar. It was about half full of peanut butter. In my dream, I gazed into the jar and was sickened to see blood swirled in with the food. Then the dream changed and I was lying on my back in the tall grass of a swamp. My body was partially submerged in shallow water from my chest down. I couldn't move...could only stare up at the blue sky. I suddenly realized I was a corpse. I had been murdered. And with that realization I rose above myself and looked down. From that moment, I would switch back and forth from observing from above to being inside my lifeless body.
There were bugs skittering across my legs and I felt the sharp pinch of crabs chewing on my fingertips. I knew it must be at least 80 degrees, but I was so, so cold. I hate being cold. I could hear the brush moving and caught glimpses of blue uniforms. Investigators were searching for me. Finally, somebody spotted me. "Over here guys! I found it."
A middle-aged cop stood over me, gazing into my vacant, dead eyes. Eyes that never closed because at the moment of death they were open in shock and fear. I was covered in blood and dirt and my leg was turned in an unnatural way. I knew it was very, very broken.
Then the dream flashed into a completely different scene. I was in my mother's garden. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I could hear bees buzzing around the flowers as I sat on the ground, concentrating on the contents of a glass of water. I was busy making a bird, you see. Yes, making. I was creating a beautiful yellow chick inside the glass. I didn't know quite how I was doing it, but eventually I finished and watched the little bird surface. I picked it up and cupped it in my hand. And as I gazed at the bird, I felt a sudden, fierce love for it. I wanted to nurture it. It was life and it was good.
Freud would have a field day with that. He'd pobably say I was stuck in the oral phase and wasn't breastfed long enough. (Thanks a lot, Mom.)
This morning I am headed up to Theif River Falls where I will be working a case, but more importantly, I'll be meeting Peri! She and I will go out and play on Friday night. We are still hopeful that we can find a mechanical bull, but barring that we'll settle for a goat or maybe a small elk.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
8/3/05
6:16 a.m. I got a call from Hummer yesterday morning around 9am. He was calling in sick on a case he was supposed to have been on at 6am. Admittedly, he DID sound as if he was about to keel over.
I was irritated that he'd waited three hours into the investigation to call in. "Wulp, I din't wanna wake you up." He sniffs and then moans as if in pain. Oh, stop...less is more, Hummer.
"Hummer, you KNOW you need to call me before your case begins if you're sick. You've been working for this company for three years! I don't care if it's two o'clock in the morning...just leave a message on my voicemail if I don't answer."
"Okay." He says. Silence.
But I'm not through. I've got a few bones to pick with Hummer and I'm in a pissy mood. "Hummer, where is your update from the Johnson case you were supposed to conduct yesterday?" I'd gotten an email from Corp this morning indicating that Hummer didn't turn in his update.
"Oh. I'm doing that one today." Silence. Don't call him a jackass...DON'T call him a jackass.
In what I felt was a heroic show of self-control, I said calmly, "Hummer, you can't just reschedule your own cases on a whim."
"Okay." He says. More silence.
"And..." I am getting mad now, "And you must come to me when you have questions and concerns. That pay discrepancy you had last week...I told you to send me an email outlining the issue so I could forward it up the Chain of Command. I TOLD you how to handle it and yet you chose to go over my head and call Stinky Jimmy because you didn't want to take the time to follow procedure and fill out a form!" Now I'm letting him have it with all of my female fury augmented by P.M.S. "Jimmy called me and he was pissed, Hummer. You don't follow company policies. You get picked up more than all of the company's investigators put together. And you cut corners and make Jimmy and I both look bad. You are close, Hummer. Really close. I want you to do well in this company and I will have your back if you'll at least try, but I would rather run your cases myself than have an employee who is unreliable." And a jackass.
Interestingly, during the course of our conversation Hummer's illness seems to be improving. I am glad that I am able to help him feel better.
After I get off the phone I call Stinky Jimmy. I love calling Stinky Jimmy when I'm mad because he gets mad right along with me. And then he makes me laugh. What a good boss. Anyway, here's a little exerpt from the truly masterful email Jimmy sent to Corp and CC'd to Hummer and I.
Recently actions of Investigator Hummer have been somewhat questionable and a review of the Investigator's standards is necessary. It seems as if Investigator Hummer feels that he can re-schedule cases as his own whim, disregard the Chain of Command, discuss case incidents with former supervisor before notifying own supervisor, notifying supervisor late in the morning to advise of being sick well into the scheduled case, and too numerous times to be mentioned being confronted by Claimant or other case factoring situations. While it is true that the Investigator has been carrying a substantial caseload, his actions cannot be overlooked.
This company has strict procedures which must be followed and to place a case in jeopardy due to a lackless effort cannot be tolerated. Just as we have Clients whom we have to deal with, Investigator's must be aware of Client needs and the responsibility to a Client to conduct proper and timely cases.
Please forward this memo directly to Investigator Hummer advising that this company will not tolerate any further actions described above.
It is requested that a copy be placed in Investigator's personal file for future reference.
Stinky Jimmy
Regional Manager
Woo hoo! My ass stings from that and I'm not even the one who was getting the whoopin'...
I smile and decide I wanna be Stinky Jimmy when I grow up. Except for not so stinky.
I was irritated that he'd waited three hours into the investigation to call in. "Wulp, I din't wanna wake you up." He sniffs and then moans as if in pain. Oh, stop...less is more, Hummer.
"Hummer, you KNOW you need to call me before your case begins if you're sick. You've been working for this company for three years! I don't care if it's two o'clock in the morning...just leave a message on my voicemail if I don't answer."
"Okay." He says. Silence.
But I'm not through. I've got a few bones to pick with Hummer and I'm in a pissy mood. "Hummer, where is your update from the Johnson case you were supposed to conduct yesterday?" I'd gotten an email from Corp this morning indicating that Hummer didn't turn in his update.
"Oh. I'm doing that one today." Silence. Don't call him a jackass...DON'T call him a jackass.
In what I felt was a heroic show of self-control, I said calmly, "Hummer, you can't just reschedule your own cases on a whim."
"Okay." He says. More silence.
"And..." I am getting mad now, "And you must come to me when you have questions and concerns. That pay discrepancy you had last week...I told you to send me an email outlining the issue so I could forward it up the Chain of Command. I TOLD you how to handle it and yet you chose to go over my head and call Stinky Jimmy because you didn't want to take the time to follow procedure and fill out a form!" Now I'm letting him have it with all of my female fury augmented by P.M.S. "Jimmy called me and he was pissed, Hummer. You don't follow company policies. You get picked up more than all of the company's investigators put together. And you cut corners and make Jimmy and I both look bad. You are close, Hummer. Really close. I want you to do well in this company and I will have your back if you'll at least try, but I would rather run your cases myself than have an employee who is unreliable." And a jackass.
Interestingly, during the course of our conversation Hummer's illness seems to be improving. I am glad that I am able to help him feel better.
After I get off the phone I call Stinky Jimmy. I love calling Stinky Jimmy when I'm mad because he gets mad right along with me. And then he makes me laugh. What a good boss. Anyway, here's a little exerpt from the truly masterful email Jimmy sent to Corp and CC'd to Hummer and I.
Recently actions of Investigator Hummer have been somewhat questionable and a review of the Investigator's standards is necessary. It seems as if Investigator Hummer feels that he can re-schedule cases as his own whim, disregard the Chain of Command, discuss case incidents with former supervisor before notifying own supervisor, notifying supervisor late in the morning to advise of being sick well into the scheduled case, and too numerous times to be mentioned being confronted by Claimant or other case factoring situations. While it is true that the Investigator has been carrying a substantial caseload, his actions cannot be overlooked.
This company has strict procedures which must be followed and to place a case in jeopardy due to a lackless effort cannot be tolerated. Just as we have Clients whom we have to deal with, Investigator's must be aware of Client needs and the responsibility to a Client to conduct proper and timely cases.
Please forward this memo directly to Investigator Hummer advising that this company will not tolerate any further actions described above.
It is requested that a copy be placed in Investigator's personal file for future reference.
Stinky Jimmy
Regional Manager
Woo hoo! My ass stings from that and I'm not even the one who was getting the whoopin'...
I smile and decide I wanna be Stinky Jimmy when I grow up. Except for not so stinky.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
8/2/05 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
5:19 a.m.
Very often in "real life" forensics you don't get resolution on cases. You can only speculate as to what happened to somebody and whether those responsible got their comeuppance. You have to learn to come to terms with not knowing.
I have lots of cases in that category that still bother me. The child's jaw bone some kid found in the woods. There's never been a break in that case. Or there's the headless, limbless torso that was stashed in a gas station dumpster right off the freeway... To this DAY I still search the missing persons files from time to time hoping to find a match for the torso. Somebody has to be missing him. He was only about 16-years-old. But, it's been ten years now and still no clues. I don't imagine I'll ever really know who he was and how he came to such a grisly end.
And then there's Circus Boy. When I first started working at the MEO the place was a disorganized mess. There were boxes and bags and bones and tissue samples that had accumulated over years and years. Part of my job, in addition to my unidentified work, was to go through the rooms of "stuff" and determine what needed to be disposed of, what needed to go into police custody, what should be returned to family, etc...
It was unbelievable. I found clothing. I found scene photographs. I found loaded guns, drug paraphernalia, heroine, bones that were misclassified as animal bones when they were actually human. I found dental arcades from unidentified cases years past. I found Native American artifacts.
And I found a long metal box that resembled a casket. It was lined in red velvet and there was a tattered mummy inside.
The skin and muscle tissue on the face was mostly gone, leaving the garish grin of a darkly stained skull. There were areas on the rest of the body were bone poked through and other places were dessicated flesh resembled beef jerky.
I was curious about how we obtained such a strange set of remains and why we hadn't given it a proper burial years ago. So, I went up into the case archives from the mid 1980's to dig up the file. I sat down on a footstool and read the investigative report.
The MEO got a call from a woman who was cleaning out her uncles mobile home after he'd passed away. She found the remains and called the police. She said years ago a strange man came to her uncles door. He was selling a lot of various junk and the mummy was among his wares. The man said the mummy was genuine from Egypt had been part of a circus show back around the turn of the century. Her uncle bought the mummy and would take it out at Halloween to scare the neighborhood kids. The niece didn't want to keep it for some reason...
I walked back over to the other building to see what I could find out about Circus Boy. I love doing skeletal analysis. It is the ultimate puzzle for me. I am like a kid at Christmas.
I glove my hands and kneel down over the remains. Almost immediately I realize this was no Egyptian mummy. This skeleton was Negroid. African. You can tell because the mid-facial region (from the nose down) is highly prognathic...meaning it juts out from the rest of the face. Also, the facial bones are not as sharply angular in Negroids as they are for Caucasians and Mongoloids.
Hmmm. I examine the teeth... The third molars had not yet erupted. Several teeth had fallen out of the sockets, but that was after death. The remaining teeth exhibited no sign of dental work. No fillings. No sealants. That and the fragility of the bones lend credence to them being at or around a century old.
Now how did a a young African boy end up a sideshow in a circus? Odd. I am starting to feel uneasy about this. I continue my analysis.
The femur has not yet fused on this boy. He was probably only about 13 or 14 years old. He was tall, around 5'10", and would have been taller had he lived long enough to reach his full stature.
So, he's an African male, 14 years old, 5'10" tall. He's been dead for over 100 years. How did he die?
I start looking for evidence of cause of death. I see no evidence of a disease, chronic or accute, causing his untimely death. He had a broken left arm, but it had healed years before he passed away.
I examine the cranium and notice there is a fracture. I follow the fracture line to the point of impact. An oblong indent about the size and shape of a sledge hammer is clear in the back of his skull. I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was not a post-mortem injury. The interior of the fracture lines has weathered at the same rate as the rest of the bones. I am certain this happened at the time of death and is the reason this boy died.
I take a little more time going over the rest of the skeleton, now. I find two severely broken ribs...as if the same weapon that broke the boy's skull was also used on his body.
I also find a perfectly round hole drilled out of the side of the temporal bone. This is almost surgical looking. I believe this hole was made as a portal for removing the brain after the boy had died. They didn't want to damage the skull any more than it already was.
I sat back on my heals. I feel slightly sick to my stomach. Suddenly I find it unacceptable to have him in that box another minute longer. I go into the store room and bring out an acid-free cardboard box that I carefully place him in until I can arrange a proper burial.
Very often in "real life" forensics you don't get resolution on cases. You can only speculate as to what happened to somebody and whether those responsible got their comeuppance. You have to learn to come to terms with not knowing.
I have lots of cases in that category that still bother me. The child's jaw bone some kid found in the woods. There's never been a break in that case. Or there's the headless, limbless torso that was stashed in a gas station dumpster right off the freeway... To this DAY I still search the missing persons files from time to time hoping to find a match for the torso. Somebody has to be missing him. He was only about 16-years-old. But, it's been ten years now and still no clues. I don't imagine I'll ever really know who he was and how he came to such a grisly end.
And then there's Circus Boy. When I first started working at the MEO the place was a disorganized mess. There were boxes and bags and bones and tissue samples that had accumulated over years and years. Part of my job, in addition to my unidentified work, was to go through the rooms of "stuff" and determine what needed to be disposed of, what needed to go into police custody, what should be returned to family, etc...
It was unbelievable. I found clothing. I found scene photographs. I found loaded guns, drug paraphernalia, heroine, bones that were misclassified as animal bones when they were actually human. I found dental arcades from unidentified cases years past. I found Native American artifacts.
And I found a long metal box that resembled a casket. It was lined in red velvet and there was a tattered mummy inside.
The skin and muscle tissue on the face was mostly gone, leaving the garish grin of a darkly stained skull. There were areas on the rest of the body were bone poked through and other places were dessicated flesh resembled beef jerky.
I was curious about how we obtained such a strange set of remains and why we hadn't given it a proper burial years ago. So, I went up into the case archives from the mid 1980's to dig up the file. I sat down on a footstool and read the investigative report.
The MEO got a call from a woman who was cleaning out her uncles mobile home after he'd passed away. She found the remains and called the police. She said years ago a strange man came to her uncles door. He was selling a lot of various junk and the mummy was among his wares. The man said the mummy was genuine from Egypt had been part of a circus show back around the turn of the century. Her uncle bought the mummy and would take it out at Halloween to scare the neighborhood kids. The niece didn't want to keep it for some reason...
I walked back over to the other building to see what I could find out about Circus Boy. I love doing skeletal analysis. It is the ultimate puzzle for me. I am like a kid at Christmas.
I glove my hands and kneel down over the remains. Almost immediately I realize this was no Egyptian mummy. This skeleton was Negroid. African. You can tell because the mid-facial region (from the nose down) is highly prognathic...meaning it juts out from the rest of the face. Also, the facial bones are not as sharply angular in Negroids as they are for Caucasians and Mongoloids.
Hmmm. I examine the teeth... The third molars had not yet erupted. Several teeth had fallen out of the sockets, but that was after death. The remaining teeth exhibited no sign of dental work. No fillings. No sealants. That and the fragility of the bones lend credence to them being at or around a century old.
Now how did a a young African boy end up a sideshow in a circus? Odd. I am starting to feel uneasy about this. I continue my analysis.
The femur has not yet fused on this boy. He was probably only about 13 or 14 years old. He was tall, around 5'10", and would have been taller had he lived long enough to reach his full stature.
So, he's an African male, 14 years old, 5'10" tall. He's been dead for over 100 years. How did he die?
I start looking for evidence of cause of death. I see no evidence of a disease, chronic or accute, causing his untimely death. He had a broken left arm, but it had healed years before he passed away.
I examine the cranium and notice there is a fracture. I follow the fracture line to the point of impact. An oblong indent about the size and shape of a sledge hammer is clear in the back of his skull. I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was not a post-mortem injury. The interior of the fracture lines has weathered at the same rate as the rest of the bones. I am certain this happened at the time of death and is the reason this boy died.
I take a little more time going over the rest of the skeleton, now. I find two severely broken ribs...as if the same weapon that broke the boy's skull was also used on his body.
I also find a perfectly round hole drilled out of the side of the temporal bone. This is almost surgical looking. I believe this hole was made as a portal for removing the brain after the boy had died. They didn't want to damage the skull any more than it already was.
I sat back on my heals. I feel slightly sick to my stomach. Suddenly I find it unacceptable to have him in that box another minute longer. I go into the store room and bring out an acid-free cardboard box that I carefully place him in until I can arrange a proper burial.
Monday, August 01, 2005
KUDU JOHNSON NEEDS MY HELP
I got the following email this morning. Kudu seems like a great guy. I mean, all he wants from me is my bank account number where he can instruct the bank to transfer a whole lot of money to me in about three working days.
Isn't that swell of him? ...even though he called me 'sir'.
Sir,
I humbly ask for your assistance to enable me transfer
the money my late father kept in a bank in(THE TRUST
BANK)before he died, into your nominated account
overseas.
My name is KUDU JOHNSON, my mother's name is Madam
Mariam Johnson and my late father's name is Chief Omeh
Attah Johnson. He was a gold and diamond merchant from
Ashanti region of Ghana in West Africa
I am from a polygamous family and my father has four
wives and twenty-four children, am the eighth child
and my mother is the last wife of my father and he
entrusted all his valuable documents to her.
Since we are from a polygamous home, after the death
of my father, the whole family has been deserted. Now
my elder brothers, sisters and their mothers are in
search of my father's documents but my mother who is
in possession of the documents has refused to
disclose the custodian of the documents to them,
because they are all fighting for themselves and
their selfish interest.
Right now all I want from you is your bank account
number where we can instruct the bank to transfer this
money to you by telegraphic transfer, which takes
about three working days.
We are making this arrangement in order to avoid the
rest of the children and their mothers, because if
they find out they will take everything from us.
It is for the mutual benefit of both of us, you will
be entitle to twenty percent of the funds, as the
owner of the account, the total amount in the bank is
$28 million dollars.
Please reply immediately with your Bank account
details so that we can forward the information to the
bank of ghana to expedite the transfer immediately.
Could you also include your contact address, fax
numbers and your private mobile phone number for easy
communication.
Best regards.
KUDU JOHNSON
Isn't that swell of him? ...even though he called me 'sir'.
Sir,
I humbly ask for your assistance to enable me transfer
the money my late father kept in a bank in(THE TRUST
BANK)before he died, into your nominated account
overseas.
My name is KUDU JOHNSON, my mother's name is Madam
Mariam Johnson and my late father's name is Chief Omeh
Attah Johnson. He was a gold and diamond merchant from
Ashanti region of Ghana in West Africa
I am from a polygamous family and my father has four
wives and twenty-four children, am the eighth child
and my mother is the last wife of my father and he
entrusted all his valuable documents to her.
Since we are from a polygamous home, after the death
of my father, the whole family has been deserted. Now
my elder brothers, sisters and their mothers are in
search of my father's documents but my mother who is
in possession of the documents has refused to
disclose the custodian of the documents to them,
because they are all fighting for themselves and
their selfish interest.
Right now all I want from you is your bank account
number where we can instruct the bank to transfer this
money to you by telegraphic transfer, which takes
about three working days.
We are making this arrangement in order to avoid the
rest of the children and their mothers, because if
they find out they will take everything from us.
It is for the mutual benefit of both of us, you will
be entitle to twenty percent of the funds, as the
owner of the account, the total amount in the bank is
$28 million dollars.
Please reply immediately with your Bank account
details so that we can forward the information to the
bank of ghana to expedite the transfer immediately.
Could you also include your contact address, fax
numbers and your private mobile phone number for easy
communication.
Best regards.
KUDU JOHNSON
8/1/05
6:08 a.m. I am in Minnesota again. Home sweet home. Today I was supposed to restart a case I'd already worked a few weeks back. Unfortunately, a good family friend died unexpectedly and instead I will be going to a funeral.
I have somehow managed to avoid funerals ever since my grandfather passed away when I was 8-years-old. I remember Cuz and I playing outside of the funeral home under the umbrella of a huge pine tree. Cuz was the most adorable little blond cherub that ever there was. And she was the little sister I never had. My partner in crime. (And still is.)
It was shady and hot outside and the ground under the tree was blanketed with needles. We pretended we were forest rangers. We ended up covered in sap, having climbed the sticky branches in our best Sunday dresses. I remember trying in vain to get the bits of bark and dirt off my hands by rubbing them on my dress... in the grass. That didn't help. Now I just added grass to the mix.
When we went inside, Cuz and I stood before grandpa's casket, considering him. He looked like he was sleeping. His hair was combed over on his forehead all neat and silvery. I reached out to touch him and my father barked from across the room, "Polly!" I pulled my hand away and high-tailed it outside again with Cuz not far behind me.
I remember my brother, who was in the Army, flying in for the funeral. He was so handsome in his uniform. I remember my mother with tears in her eyes kissing grandpa's forehead before they closed the casket.
But that was a long time ago and attending the wake last night was definitely a foreign thing to me. Family and friends gathered. Chatting. Crying. The body of the deceased laid out in a far corner where people would occasionally approach, grim-faced. "He looks good." They would say. I don't think so, though I keep my opinion to myself. He looks dead. He looks caked in garish make-up meant to hide his pale, pale skin.
I watch as my neices and nephews run around irreverently. It makes me smile and remember Cuz and I back 20 years ago.
On the way home my parents and I discuss how we want our remains dealt with. Mom and dad are considering cremation. I tell them that's the cleanest, most efficient way to go. We all end up dust in the end, after all. I do not tell them that bone does not ever fully burn and that there is usually quite a bit that needs to be pulverized in a contraption that resembles a grist mill. I do not tell them that fillings, steel plates, screws from surgeries...all have to be sifted through and removed after the initial burn. I do not tell them that the cardboard casket that accompanied the body into the furnace constitutes a fair portion of the cremains.
Still, decomposition is a messy process and I would like to avoid it. I tell my parents I want to be mummified. My mother rolls her eyes.
Later this evening I will write about a mummy that we affectionately called, "Circus Boy" at the MEO.
I have somehow managed to avoid funerals ever since my grandfather passed away when I was 8-years-old. I remember Cuz and I playing outside of the funeral home under the umbrella of a huge pine tree. Cuz was the most adorable little blond cherub that ever there was. And she was the little sister I never had. My partner in crime. (And still is.)
It was shady and hot outside and the ground under the tree was blanketed with needles. We pretended we were forest rangers. We ended up covered in sap, having climbed the sticky branches in our best Sunday dresses. I remember trying in vain to get the bits of bark and dirt off my hands by rubbing them on my dress... in the grass. That didn't help. Now I just added grass to the mix.
When we went inside, Cuz and I stood before grandpa's casket, considering him. He looked like he was sleeping. His hair was combed over on his forehead all neat and silvery. I reached out to touch him and my father barked from across the room, "Polly!" I pulled my hand away and high-tailed it outside again with Cuz not far behind me.
I remember my brother, who was in the Army, flying in for the funeral. He was so handsome in his uniform. I remember my mother with tears in her eyes kissing grandpa's forehead before they closed the casket.
But that was a long time ago and attending the wake last night was definitely a foreign thing to me. Family and friends gathered. Chatting. Crying. The body of the deceased laid out in a far corner where people would occasionally approach, grim-faced. "He looks good." They would say. I don't think so, though I keep my opinion to myself. He looks dead. He looks caked in garish make-up meant to hide his pale, pale skin.
I watch as my neices and nephews run around irreverently. It makes me smile and remember Cuz and I back 20 years ago.
On the way home my parents and I discuss how we want our remains dealt with. Mom and dad are considering cremation. I tell them that's the cleanest, most efficient way to go. We all end up dust in the end, after all. I do not tell them that bone does not ever fully burn and that there is usually quite a bit that needs to be pulverized in a contraption that resembles a grist mill. I do not tell them that fillings, steel plates, screws from surgeries...all have to be sifted through and removed after the initial burn. I do not tell them that the cardboard casket that accompanied the body into the furnace constitutes a fair portion of the cremains.
Still, decomposition is a messy process and I would like to avoid it. I tell my parents I want to be mummified. My mother rolls her eyes.
Later this evening I will write about a mummy that we affectionately called, "Circus Boy" at the MEO.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
34347/31/05 WARNING: Just a little GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
7:38 a.m. I don't particularly care for spiders. And that is why, as I lay in bed looking at my ceiling I give a start when I notice one, about 2 inches across, slowly crawl out of the air vent above my bed. Aaack! I watch it...knowing that if I move it will scream (yes, I said scream...leave me alone) and dive onto my head...at which point it will bite me until I die because it is probably a brown recleuse.
I slowly scoot off the bed and move into the other corner of the room. I CANNOT sleep with a spider above my bed. What if it crawls into my mouth? What if it crawls into the bathroom and makes a nest in the toilet where it will kill me by biting my butt?
I grab a phone book and move slowly back onto the bed. It takes me 20 minutes to maneuver myself. The spider is wary and it jumps with my movements. I am sweating. I finally close my eyes, aim (I know...wrong order), and slam the book into the ceiling while similtaneously jumping off the bed and scampering into the other room. I shake out my hair and brush off my shoulders just in case it landed on me.
Long story short, I missed. I look on the floor and the book and find no withered body as my prize. Instead, I am more paranoid than ever. Oh no! I pissed it off. Now it's really going to get me.
It's after midnight now. I've moved furniture and checked behind things, but still no luck. I finally move the bed into the middle of the room and remove all the sheets and pillow cases so that it can't sneak up on me. After an hour or so, I finally fall asleep.
Yes. I am aware I have issues.
Back when I was a kid, my parents had a dirt cellar in the basement under the stairs. They kept potatoes and onions and apples from our garden down there. You had to walk through to the back of a closet and then crawl through a port hole-type door (about the size of a car window) to get inside. There was one bare lightbulb wired into the four-foot ceiling. The walls were cinder block. The whole place smelled of earth and rotting wood, which made sense since the damp dirt floor was covered with wooden planks.
The room would have freaked me out even without the grubs, centipedes, and nests of spiders that crowded the doorway and the ceiling.
Every other day my mother would call me around dinner time and send me to fetch some potatoes or some onions. I would reluctantly take a bucket down into the basement and open the door. Webs would be crossing the entryway so that I was certain a big, fat spider would fall in my hair and crawl down my shirt and bite my bare flesh if I tried to pass through.
I would sit there and watch them. Black, beady eyes. Huge pincer fangs. Some were big and furry and still. Others were black and stout and the slightest breeze would cause them to jerk and jump. Ten minutes would pass and Mom would call down to me to hurry. I would look up toward where the voice was originating and huff. I was certain this constituted some form of child abuse.
I would take a deep breath and close my eyes as I passed under the webs. There I would stand...in the middle of a room overtaken with arachnids. I would crouch down and huddle close to the floor, again examining the room to see where all of them were. Up above me. Over in the corners. Crawling in amongst the potatoes and onions. Watching me.
An old, tattered web would brush against my skin and I would jump and yelp. Then I'd hear Mom's voice again calling for me. I would hastily fill my bucket and hesitate at the doorway again. Finally, I would jump out, slam the door behind me, and run upstairs as fast as my little legs would take me.
So, you can imagine how I feel when several years later I am at the ME's office and a body is brought in that has been decomposing in the forest for a week. The woman went missing from a local WalMart parking lot several days ago. It turned out her step-son and his friends murdered her because she wouldn't let them borrow her car.
What was left of the body was teaming with insects. There were bugs as big as my hand making their way out of pockets and shirt sleeves. Interestingly, there were also roaches...which are urban insects and indicate that she was moved there from another location. Turns out they stashed her in a basement for a few days before dumping her in the forest.
The Chief ME is there watching me as I double glove my hands and prepare to reach into the pockets and remove any valuables or identification. Just as I reach for a pocket, a three-inch-long centipede slithers its way out and plops down onto the tray, where it disappears under the body. I pull my hand back and scream. I close my eyes and curse myself. Oh, no I did NOT just scream. But I did. I glance up at the Cheif sheepishly and she narrows her eyes. "Well, go ahead!" she says. Ugh.
I thrust my hand into the pocket, ignoring the little bodies I feel scrambling to get out of my way. The pants are wet with broken down, liquefied fat...called adipocere. No valuables in that pocket. Come on, Polly. Hold it together. I move on to the next and methodically go through each pocket, trying very hard to control the urge to wrinkle my nose and say, "Ew, ew ew!". After I am finished, the ME leaves and I do the heebie jeebie dance for about 10 minutes before pushing the tray into the cooler.
I slowly scoot off the bed and move into the other corner of the room. I CANNOT sleep with a spider above my bed. What if it crawls into my mouth? What if it crawls into the bathroom and makes a nest in the toilet where it will kill me by biting my butt?
I grab a phone book and move slowly back onto the bed. It takes me 20 minutes to maneuver myself. The spider is wary and it jumps with my movements. I am sweating. I finally close my eyes, aim (I know...wrong order), and slam the book into the ceiling while similtaneously jumping off the bed and scampering into the other room. I shake out my hair and brush off my shoulders just in case it landed on me.
Long story short, I missed. I look on the floor and the book and find no withered body as my prize. Instead, I am more paranoid than ever. Oh no! I pissed it off. Now it's really going to get me.
It's after midnight now. I've moved furniture and checked behind things, but still no luck. I finally move the bed into the middle of the room and remove all the sheets and pillow cases so that it can't sneak up on me. After an hour or so, I finally fall asleep.
Yes. I am aware I have issues.
Back when I was a kid, my parents had a dirt cellar in the basement under the stairs. They kept potatoes and onions and apples from our garden down there. You had to walk through to the back of a closet and then crawl through a port hole-type door (about the size of a car window) to get inside. There was one bare lightbulb wired into the four-foot ceiling. The walls were cinder block. The whole place smelled of earth and rotting wood, which made sense since the damp dirt floor was covered with wooden planks.
The room would have freaked me out even without the grubs, centipedes, and nests of spiders that crowded the doorway and the ceiling.
Every other day my mother would call me around dinner time and send me to fetch some potatoes or some onions. I would reluctantly take a bucket down into the basement and open the door. Webs would be crossing the entryway so that I was certain a big, fat spider would fall in my hair and crawl down my shirt and bite my bare flesh if I tried to pass through.
I would sit there and watch them. Black, beady eyes. Huge pincer fangs. Some were big and furry and still. Others were black and stout and the slightest breeze would cause them to jerk and jump. Ten minutes would pass and Mom would call down to me to hurry. I would look up toward where the voice was originating and huff. I was certain this constituted some form of child abuse.
I would take a deep breath and close my eyes as I passed under the webs. There I would stand...in the middle of a room overtaken with arachnids. I would crouch down and huddle close to the floor, again examining the room to see where all of them were. Up above me. Over in the corners. Crawling in amongst the potatoes and onions. Watching me.
An old, tattered web would brush against my skin and I would jump and yelp. Then I'd hear Mom's voice again calling for me. I would hastily fill my bucket and hesitate at the doorway again. Finally, I would jump out, slam the door behind me, and run upstairs as fast as my little legs would take me.
So, you can imagine how I feel when several years later I am at the ME's office and a body is brought in that has been decomposing in the forest for a week. The woman went missing from a local WalMart parking lot several days ago. It turned out her step-son and his friends murdered her because she wouldn't let them borrow her car.
What was left of the body was teaming with insects. There were bugs as big as my hand making their way out of pockets and shirt sleeves. Interestingly, there were also roaches...which are urban insects and indicate that she was moved there from another location. Turns out they stashed her in a basement for a few days before dumping her in the forest.
The Chief ME is there watching me as I double glove my hands and prepare to reach into the pockets and remove any valuables or identification. Just as I reach for a pocket, a three-inch-long centipede slithers its way out and plops down onto the tray, where it disappears under the body. I pull my hand back and scream. I close my eyes and curse myself. Oh, no I did NOT just scream. But I did. I glance up at the Cheif sheepishly and she narrows her eyes. "Well, go ahead!" she says. Ugh.
I thrust my hand into the pocket, ignoring the little bodies I feel scrambling to get out of my way. The pants are wet with broken down, liquefied fat...called adipocere. No valuables in that pocket. Come on, Polly. Hold it together. I move on to the next and methodically go through each pocket, trying very hard to control the urge to wrinkle my nose and say, "Ew, ew ew!". After I am finished, the ME leaves and I do the heebie jeebie dance for about 10 minutes before pushing the tray into the cooler.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
7/30/05
7:36 a.m. I got home from Atlanta yesterday. It was a fun trip and I hope to go back soon. On the plane I sat between a man who kept nodding off and snoring on my shoulder (no drool, thank goodness) and a lady named Nervina in her mid-40's who had never flown before.
Nervina is chatty and she is currently wringing the neck of the pillow the flight attendant gave her. I don't think she knows she's even doing it. We are preparing for take-off. Nervina tells me all about her grown kids and informs me she's got a sinus infection. I move a little closer to Snoring Guy.
As we start taxiing down the runway, I watch with amusement as Nervina presses her head against the seat back, clutches the armrests, and mutters, "Lordy. Oh, Lordy." I am glad Nervina's got the window seat so she can see the action. I am hoping she doesn't need the barf bag.
Once we're up in the air she calms down a bit. I tell her that the turbulence won't be so bad once we're out of the clouds. As we break through and rise up to cruising altitude, Nervina smiles. I do, too. It's a good show today. The clouds below look like fluffy cotton balls and are trimmed in gold and pink. "It's beautiful!" she says. I watch her face, which is child-like and full of wonder.
Everything is going fine until we are about to land. Nervina starts wringing her pillow again as the landing gear goes down. "We're going so fast! Oh, Lordy! We're gonna hit that bridge!" I cover my mouth to hide my smile. Seconds before we hit the ground I warn Nervina that we're coming in a little fast so it's going to be a bit of a bumpy landing. Her eyes get as big as dinner plates. I suddenly realize that maybe wasn't the best thing to say. Poor Nervina. We land and the captain reverses the engine. Nervina is holding her heart.
I wake up Snoring Guy, who managed to sleep through the entire flight. He is bleary-eyed and disoriented. I tell him the plane landed and he says, "Oh. Yeah. Okay." He doesn't even thank me for letting him use my shoulder as a pillow for two hours.
I say goodbye to Nervina, who it looks like is going to make it, and I head home. When I walk in to my house I note the sink full of dishes. The garbage I forgot to take out. The dead house plants. I sigh. It is really impractical for me to have a home considering how often I'm actually here.
Speaking of travel, Stinky Jimmy called me yesterday and asked me if I want to go back to Puerto Rico in October. Hot dog! This time I'm going to make sure I get more time to goof off and eat gross things. And this time I'll devote more time brushing up on my Spanish...or better yet, I'll find myself a spicy Latin interpreter to bring along.
Today I am in a packed inner city neighborhood. I had a very hard time finding a place to park along the street that still afforded me a clear view of Subject's house. I am getting very hot, but I don't want to turn on the car engine and draw too much attention to myself. Not many people are out yet as it's just 8am on a Saturday.
After I work this case today and tomorrow, I am headed straight up to the Twin Cities again. I have to finish the case I was working there a couple of weeks back.
And after that I'm going to northern Minnesota. Way up by the Canadian border. I must say that I was dreading making that trip because, what is there up that far north besides polar bears? Well, it turns out PERI, one of the bloglit, is not too far from where I'll be! Our plans are still sketchy, but they involve Friday night, wreaking havoc on some poor small town, and a mechanical bull.
I can't wait.
Nervina is chatty and she is currently wringing the neck of the pillow the flight attendant gave her. I don't think she knows she's even doing it. We are preparing for take-off. Nervina tells me all about her grown kids and informs me she's got a sinus infection. I move a little closer to Snoring Guy.
As we start taxiing down the runway, I watch with amusement as Nervina presses her head against the seat back, clutches the armrests, and mutters, "Lordy. Oh, Lordy." I am glad Nervina's got the window seat so she can see the action. I am hoping she doesn't need the barf bag.
Once we're up in the air she calms down a bit. I tell her that the turbulence won't be so bad once we're out of the clouds. As we break through and rise up to cruising altitude, Nervina smiles. I do, too. It's a good show today. The clouds below look like fluffy cotton balls and are trimmed in gold and pink. "It's beautiful!" she says. I watch her face, which is child-like and full of wonder.
Everything is going fine until we are about to land. Nervina starts wringing her pillow again as the landing gear goes down. "We're going so fast! Oh, Lordy! We're gonna hit that bridge!" I cover my mouth to hide my smile. Seconds before we hit the ground I warn Nervina that we're coming in a little fast so it's going to be a bit of a bumpy landing. Her eyes get as big as dinner plates. I suddenly realize that maybe wasn't the best thing to say. Poor Nervina. We land and the captain reverses the engine. Nervina is holding her heart.
I wake up Snoring Guy, who managed to sleep through the entire flight. He is bleary-eyed and disoriented. I tell him the plane landed and he says, "Oh. Yeah. Okay." He doesn't even thank me for letting him use my shoulder as a pillow for two hours.
I say goodbye to Nervina, who it looks like is going to make it, and I head home. When I walk in to my house I note the sink full of dishes. The garbage I forgot to take out. The dead house plants. I sigh. It is really impractical for me to have a home considering how often I'm actually here.
Speaking of travel, Stinky Jimmy called me yesterday and asked me if I want to go back to Puerto Rico in October. Hot dog! This time I'm going to make sure I get more time to goof off and eat gross things. And this time I'll devote more time brushing up on my Spanish...or better yet, I'll find myself a spicy Latin interpreter to bring along.
Today I am in a packed inner city neighborhood. I had a very hard time finding a place to park along the street that still afforded me a clear view of Subject's house. I am getting very hot, but I don't want to turn on the car engine and draw too much attention to myself. Not many people are out yet as it's just 8am on a Saturday.
After I work this case today and tomorrow, I am headed straight up to the Twin Cities again. I have to finish the case I was working there a couple of weeks back.
And after that I'm going to northern Minnesota. Way up by the Canadian border. I must say that I was dreading making that trip because, what is there up that far north besides polar bears? Well, it turns out PERI, one of the bloglit, is not too far from where I'll be! Our plans are still sketchy, but they involve Friday night, wreaking havoc on some poor small town, and a mechanical bull.
I can't wait.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Thursday, July 28, 2005
7/28/05 WARNING: GRAPHIC/DISTURBING
9:16 a.m. So, I'm working in Atlanta for the next couple of days. Atlanta is hot. Very hot. And they have interesting billboards that say things like "Call 888-MYCOLON". Which I obediently call. A lady answers. I say, "Hello, is this my colon I'm speaking to?" I giggle and hang up.
But Atlanta has more to offer then amusing billboards. Oh, yes. Outside of the local KFC they have a giant chicken replete with moving beak and googly rolling eyes. I must get a picture of that...
Last night I went to dinner with two of the bloglit that live here, Tamara and ATLGA. ATLGA and I kept trying to find Tamara a date but whenever I would grab her arm and present her to an eligible bachelor, saying, "This is my friend, Tamara. She needs a man immediately and we think you might be him," she would turn all sorts of colors and walk away. I don't know how she expects me to hook her up if she doesn't cooperate...
Anyway, on to another topic...
I probably shouldn't admit this, (not that that has ever stopped me before) but I learned a couple of interesting forensics techniques from watching the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel.
For example, we had a case called into the ME's office. A man had passed away in his house. It was summer. Very dry inside because the air conditioner was on. Sadly, this guy wasn't missed by anybody for three months after he'd died. He had no family or friends in the area and when his mail started overflowing a neighbor realized he hadn't seen "Joe" out for a long time. He called the cops and we got the case a short time later.
There is very little furniture in the house. Just a couple of chairs, a television, a bed. The victim is face down on the floor next to one of the chairs. Sadly, he had a momma chihuahua who had a litter of puppies not long before their master died. The man and his pets are all perfectly mummified. I am there with Det. Blue. (I always seem to end up with him as the lead on my cases.) "Look at all the little Chalupa dogs all over the place! Yo quiro Taco Bell!" I ignore him because I love dogs and that just sucks. They could have eaten their master, but they didn't. Instead, they starved to death.
I get some scene photographs and Dwight loads the body into his truck. We meet back at the MEO and I am checking the decedent in. The process entails making a toe tag, fingerprinting, removing valuables and checking them into evidence, filling out lots of paperwork and placing the body in the cooler to await autopsy.
Fingerprints are very important in a case like this. We need a positive ID. I could try to get dental x-rays, but that could take several days. Obviously, a visual identification is out of the question. I look at the fingers. They resemble wrinkled up raisins. But then I remember something. I was just watching on television last night about a way to get prints off a mummy. I go in the autopsy suite and grab two white towels. I drench them in water and bring them back out. I wrap each hand in a towel. Several hours later, I remove the towels. I go back in the autopsy suite and grab a syringe. I fill it with dish soap. I return to the body and inject the dish soap (which is viscous, so won't flow back out the puncture mark) under the pads of the fingers. Sure enough, they plump up nicely and I am able to roll perfect prints. Wadda ya know.
There is another way to get prints off a decomposing body that is not dry. It's a method called "gloving". I have a strong stomach, but this one was always tough for me.
In these cases, the body is mooshy after several days of decomposing. The skin is slipping on the fingertips and the tissue underneath is practically liquefied. It is virtually impossible to pull a print. So, what you do is cut around the bottom of the first knuckle. The skin will then slip off from the flesh below very easily since everything underneath is mush. At that point, you place your gloved finger inside the dead guy's finger skin...like it's a glove. You take a print from that. Gag. It works, but it is just so nasty.
But Atlanta has more to offer then amusing billboards. Oh, yes. Outside of the local KFC they have a giant chicken replete with moving beak and googly rolling eyes. I must get a picture of that...
Last night I went to dinner with two of the bloglit that live here, Tamara and ATLGA. ATLGA and I kept trying to find Tamara a date but whenever I would grab her arm and present her to an eligible bachelor, saying, "This is my friend, Tamara. She needs a man immediately and we think you might be him," she would turn all sorts of colors and walk away. I don't know how she expects me to hook her up if she doesn't cooperate...
Anyway, on to another topic...
I probably shouldn't admit this, (not that that has ever stopped me before) but I learned a couple of interesting forensics techniques from watching the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel.
For example, we had a case called into the ME's office. A man had passed away in his house. It was summer. Very dry inside because the air conditioner was on. Sadly, this guy wasn't missed by anybody for three months after he'd died. He had no family or friends in the area and when his mail started overflowing a neighbor realized he hadn't seen "Joe" out for a long time. He called the cops and we got the case a short time later.
There is very little furniture in the house. Just a couple of chairs, a television, a bed. The victim is face down on the floor next to one of the chairs. Sadly, he had a momma chihuahua who had a litter of puppies not long before their master died. The man and his pets are all perfectly mummified. I am there with Det. Blue. (I always seem to end up with him as the lead on my cases.) "Look at all the little Chalupa dogs all over the place! Yo quiro Taco Bell!" I ignore him because I love dogs and that just sucks. They could have eaten their master, but they didn't. Instead, they starved to death.
I get some scene photographs and Dwight loads the body into his truck. We meet back at the MEO and I am checking the decedent in. The process entails making a toe tag, fingerprinting, removing valuables and checking them into evidence, filling out lots of paperwork and placing the body in the cooler to await autopsy.
Fingerprints are very important in a case like this. We need a positive ID. I could try to get dental x-rays, but that could take several days. Obviously, a visual identification is out of the question. I look at the fingers. They resemble wrinkled up raisins. But then I remember something. I was just watching on television last night about a way to get prints off a mummy. I go in the autopsy suite and grab two white towels. I drench them in water and bring them back out. I wrap each hand in a towel. Several hours later, I remove the towels. I go back in the autopsy suite and grab a syringe. I fill it with dish soap. I return to the body and inject the dish soap (which is viscous, so won't flow back out the puncture mark) under the pads of the fingers. Sure enough, they plump up nicely and I am able to roll perfect prints. Wadda ya know.
There is another way to get prints off a decomposing body that is not dry. It's a method called "gloving". I have a strong stomach, but this one was always tough for me.
In these cases, the body is mooshy after several days of decomposing. The skin is slipping on the fingertips and the tissue underneath is practically liquefied. It is virtually impossible to pull a print. So, what you do is cut around the bottom of the first knuckle. The skin will then slip off from the flesh below very easily since everything underneath is mush. At that point, you place your gloved finger inside the dead guy's finger skin...like it's a glove. You take a print from that. Gag. It works, but it is just so nasty.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
7/27/05
4:58 a.m.
WHY I'LL STICK TO MY ICE CREAM BUCKET
An Essay by, Polly PI
I finished up my casework for the day yesterday and was heading home. I was really in need of a bathroom, however, and so I stopped at a gas station before I hit the interstate.
This area is definitely a 10 on the Scary Neighborhood Scale (SNS). It's late in the afternoon and there seem to be a lot of people hanging around. I park and lock up the truck. As I walk toward the gas station entrance I notice there is a black man, 6'2", 35 years, 175 lbs sitting on the curb by the door. He is watching me intently and smiling. There is a huge gap where his bottom two front teeth used to be. Just your friendly neighborhood Crazy Guy. Hi, Crazy Guy!
I pass Crazy Guy and give him a cursory smile and nod. He stands up, steps in front of me, and says, "Oh, no, no, no! You can't be touchin' that door handle. It's not clean! A beautiful, pure thing like you shouldn't be touching anything that ain't clean."
He pulls the door open for me and gestures for me to go inside. Yikes. I cross the threshold and thank him. Inside I look for the bathroom. Sigh. Of course. It's one of those places where they hand you a key and send you outside to the back of the building. I wait in line for five or six minutes, glancing outside occasionally to see if Crazy Guy is still there. Yep. He waves at me through the glass door.
I consider my options. I can forgo the bathroom and just leave. But that won't solve the Crazy Guy problem. I can walk out and pretend he's not there, but I'm pretty sure that won't work either because Crazy Guy doesn't seem like the type to take a hint. In the end, I get the key, which is attached with a wire to the end of a fly swatter, and head out the gas station door. I open it and Crazy Guy tells me that I shouldn't have done that...that I'm too perfect and pure and so he would open doors for me from now on. He sees that I have the bathroom key and says he'll escort me to the ladies room. He puts his hand on the small of my back and guides me around the building.
Again, I'm weighing my options. I can tell Crazy Guy to get his hands off of me, but then he might get mad and I'm not sure I want to find out what Crazy Guy is like when he's mad. Meanwhile, he is telling me how God told him I would come today. He says "Praise Jesus!" a lot. "Amen!" I say back. He seems to like that and I get the vague impression that maybe I shouldn't be encouraging him.
We get to the bathroom and Crazy Guy takes the fly swatter/key from me. Damn! I was going to beat him to death with that if I needed a weapon! He stands behind me and reaches around to open the door. For the first time I feel a slight nudge of fear. He is pressed up against my back and I am thinking seriously about stomping on his foot, elbowing him in the chest, and running when he pulls the door open and backs away. "There you are. For the beautiful princess."
I take the key from him and stand at the threshold of the bathroom, which, I note with resignation, has just as much fecal matter smeared on the walls and sink as it does in the broken toilet. I hesitate for just as second. Hmmm.... Crazy Guy or disgusting filth. I step in and the door slams shut behind me.
And there is no light.
I stand there in the dark and assess my situation for yet a third time. Well, Polly, let's see... It's dark. It smells. You probably shouldn't touch anything or you will smell, too. You have to pee. There's a crazy man outside waiting for you. I hear flies buzzing around and note that at least I have a fly swatter. I smile to myself. If I live, this could be kind of funny.
There is a thin line of daylight filtering through the bottom of the door and my eyes finally start to adjust. I make my way to the commode and execute an act of sheer grace and beauty using the bathroom without touching anything. I debate washing my hands but decide against it when I notice feces smeared on the sink handles.
I take a deep breath. Time to go. I walk back out into the sunlight and find my not-so-secret admirer waiting for me. I return the key and walk toward my car while Crazy Guy asks me if I am married. I bury my left hand in my pocket. "Yes. Very happily and I have lots of kids." He shakes his head sadly, but then recovers quickly and asks me out on a date. I remind him that we just discussed how married I am. His face falls.
I am at my truck and open the door. Crazy Guy grabs my hand. He kisses it. "Until tomorrow then, my sweet." I get in the truck and drive away. I look in the rear view mirror and see Crazy Guy smiling and waving at me.
You know, I don't care what you people say...there is something to be said for ice cream buckets.
WHY I'LL STICK TO MY ICE CREAM BUCKET
An Essay by, Polly PI
I finished up my casework for the day yesterday and was heading home. I was really in need of a bathroom, however, and so I stopped at a gas station before I hit the interstate.
This area is definitely a 10 on the Scary Neighborhood Scale (SNS). It's late in the afternoon and there seem to be a lot of people hanging around. I park and lock up the truck. As I walk toward the gas station entrance I notice there is a black man, 6'2", 35 years, 175 lbs sitting on the curb by the door. He is watching me intently and smiling. There is a huge gap where his bottom two front teeth used to be. Just your friendly neighborhood Crazy Guy. Hi, Crazy Guy!
I pass Crazy Guy and give him a cursory smile and nod. He stands up, steps in front of me, and says, "Oh, no, no, no! You can't be touchin' that door handle. It's not clean! A beautiful, pure thing like you shouldn't be touching anything that ain't clean."
He pulls the door open for me and gestures for me to go inside. Yikes. I cross the threshold and thank him. Inside I look for the bathroom. Sigh. Of course. It's one of those places where they hand you a key and send you outside to the back of the building. I wait in line for five or six minutes, glancing outside occasionally to see if Crazy Guy is still there. Yep. He waves at me through the glass door.
I consider my options. I can forgo the bathroom and just leave. But that won't solve the Crazy Guy problem. I can walk out and pretend he's not there, but I'm pretty sure that won't work either because Crazy Guy doesn't seem like the type to take a hint. In the end, I get the key, which is attached with a wire to the end of a fly swatter, and head out the gas station door. I open it and Crazy Guy tells me that I shouldn't have done that...that I'm too perfect and pure and so he would open doors for me from now on. He sees that I have the bathroom key and says he'll escort me to the ladies room. He puts his hand on the small of my back and guides me around the building.
Again, I'm weighing my options. I can tell Crazy Guy to get his hands off of me, but then he might get mad and I'm not sure I want to find out what Crazy Guy is like when he's mad. Meanwhile, he is telling me how God told him I would come today. He says "Praise Jesus!" a lot. "Amen!" I say back. He seems to like that and I get the vague impression that maybe I shouldn't be encouraging him.
We get to the bathroom and Crazy Guy takes the fly swatter/key from me. Damn! I was going to beat him to death with that if I needed a weapon! He stands behind me and reaches around to open the door. For the first time I feel a slight nudge of fear. He is pressed up against my back and I am thinking seriously about stomping on his foot, elbowing him in the chest, and running when he pulls the door open and backs away. "There you are. For the beautiful princess."
I take the key from him and stand at the threshold of the bathroom, which, I note with resignation, has just as much fecal matter smeared on the walls and sink as it does in the broken toilet. I hesitate for just as second. Hmmm.... Crazy Guy or disgusting filth. I step in and the door slams shut behind me.
And there is no light.
I stand there in the dark and assess my situation for yet a third time. Well, Polly, let's see... It's dark. It smells. You probably shouldn't touch anything or you will smell, too. You have to pee. There's a crazy man outside waiting for you. I hear flies buzzing around and note that at least I have a fly swatter. I smile to myself. If I live, this could be kind of funny.
There is a thin line of daylight filtering through the bottom of the door and my eyes finally start to adjust. I make my way to the commode and execute an act of sheer grace and beauty using the bathroom without touching anything. I debate washing my hands but decide against it when I notice feces smeared on the sink handles.
I take a deep breath. Time to go. I walk back out into the sunlight and find my not-so-secret admirer waiting for me. I return the key and walk toward my car while Crazy Guy asks me if I am married. I bury my left hand in my pocket. "Yes. Very happily and I have lots of kids." He shakes his head sadly, but then recovers quickly and asks me out on a date. I remind him that we just discussed how married I am. His face falls.
I am at my truck and open the door. Crazy Guy grabs my hand. He kisses it. "Until tomorrow then, my sweet." I get in the truck and drive away. I look in the rear view mirror and see Crazy Guy smiling and waving at me.
You know, I don't care what you people say...there is something to be said for ice cream buckets.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
7/26/05
4:23 a.m. I found my first gray hair yesterday... shimmering there on the top of my head in the roots that so desperately needed touching up. I wasn't sure at first. Is this a trick of the light? But then I pulled it out and took a closer look. Sure enough. Well, wadda ya know. It was silvery white and thicker than the rest. I was pleased. None of that dull yellow gray for me, boy. I don't know why people dislike gray hair. It's such a lovely color. When I go gray I will have shimmery hair to match my sparkly pants.
Of course, that doesn't prevent me from running to my hair dresser in a panic. I walk into the salon and say, "Fix me! I need it to look good NOW!" She laughs. My hair is a disaster. Stringy and knotted up. I have been entirely negligent over the past few months. As she tries to comb her way through my rats nest, I feel like I owe her an explanation. "I don't have to have much human contact, you see..." She says nothing. I feel like I'm being scolded, so I sulk quietly while she does her magic.
The hair dresser finally gets me looking half-human again and then I have an idea. This is a full-service salon/spa. Why not try that spray paint fake tan thingy? A little color might do me some good...
As usual, I don't think very far ahead before embarking on this latest journey. I follow the cute, 20-something young woman to a room off of the main salon. The room is furnished sparcely with a full-length mirror, a floor mat, and a cabinet filled with the stuff that I suppose she will use to paint me.
The woman turns to me and says, "Just...you know...take your clothes off and I'll be back in in a couple of minutes." I looked at her. "I... you mean I have to get naked?" I say. She looks at me impatiently. "I've done this, like, maybe 200 times. Don't worry about it."
She walks out of the room and I stand there for a minute. I reason with myself. Oh, stop being a prude, Polly...women get bikini waxes from total strangers. This can't possibly be as bad as that. So I take off my clothes and I'm scanning the room looking for, you know, a towel...a napkin...something to cover up with. There is a chair and I consider sitting in it, but then I think of the 200 other people that were in this room before me and I quickly abandon that idea.
The girl walks back in and I reflexively cross one leg over the other and use my hands to cover the important parts. She glances at me and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. Then she turns to the cabinet and begins pulling out bottles and tubes and things.
She loads the air brush sprayer and tells me to stand in front of the mirror and put my arms out in front of me. I watch in the mirror as she starts spraying me with this cold clear liquid. "This is so that the color will catch better," she tells me conversationally. I look at her. "You mean you're priming me? I'm being primed?" I start to reconsider the wisdom of being air brushed, but it's too late. I'm already on the roller coaster, as it were, so I might as well throw my arms up in the air and enjoy the ride, right?
The girl is spraying...you know...EVERYTHING. I am tempted to ask her how the weather is down there, but I refrain. Finally, after about 20 minutes, she tells me I'm done. "Stand right there, now." She puts a fan on me and tells me that I'll be feeling a little tacky until everything dries. She leaves the room and I examine the results in the mirror. Hmmm...not bad. I decide that being spray painted was okay after all.
Maybe next time I'll try the bikini wax.
Of course, that doesn't prevent me from running to my hair dresser in a panic. I walk into the salon and say, "Fix me! I need it to look good NOW!" She laughs. My hair is a disaster. Stringy and knotted up. I have been entirely negligent over the past few months. As she tries to comb her way through my rats nest, I feel like I owe her an explanation. "I don't have to have much human contact, you see..." She says nothing. I feel like I'm being scolded, so I sulk quietly while she does her magic.
The hair dresser finally gets me looking half-human again and then I have an idea. This is a full-service salon/spa. Why not try that spray paint fake tan thingy? A little color might do me some good...
As usual, I don't think very far ahead before embarking on this latest journey. I follow the cute, 20-something young woman to a room off of the main salon. The room is furnished sparcely with a full-length mirror, a floor mat, and a cabinet filled with the stuff that I suppose she will use to paint me.
The woman turns to me and says, "Just...you know...take your clothes off and I'll be back in in a couple of minutes." I looked at her. "I... you mean I have to get naked?" I say. She looks at me impatiently. "I've done this, like, maybe 200 times. Don't worry about it."
She walks out of the room and I stand there for a minute. I reason with myself. Oh, stop being a prude, Polly...women get bikini waxes from total strangers. This can't possibly be as bad as that. So I take off my clothes and I'm scanning the room looking for, you know, a towel...a napkin...something to cover up with. There is a chair and I consider sitting in it, but then I think of the 200 other people that were in this room before me and I quickly abandon that idea.
The girl walks back in and I reflexively cross one leg over the other and use my hands to cover the important parts. She glances at me and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. Then she turns to the cabinet and begins pulling out bottles and tubes and things.
She loads the air brush sprayer and tells me to stand in front of the mirror and put my arms out in front of me. I watch in the mirror as she starts spraying me with this cold clear liquid. "This is so that the color will catch better," she tells me conversationally. I look at her. "You mean you're priming me? I'm being primed?" I start to reconsider the wisdom of being air brushed, but it's too late. I'm already on the roller coaster, as it were, so I might as well throw my arms up in the air and enjoy the ride, right?
The girl is spraying...you know...EVERYTHING. I am tempted to ask her how the weather is down there, but I refrain. Finally, after about 20 minutes, she tells me I'm done. "Stand right there, now." She puts a fan on me and tells me that I'll be feeling a little tacky until everything dries. She leaves the room and I examine the results in the mirror. Hmmm...not bad. I decide that being spray painted was okay after all.
Maybe next time I'll try the bikini wax.
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