28
When Parish’s nightmare of revenge was over, the detectives and coroners arrived led by Detective Paul Meyers. They passively photographed the bodies, took measurements of distances. Blood specialists graphically illustrated splatter markings to detect the position of the shooter at the time of each carefully aimed shot. Very soon, Detective Paul Meyers gathered evidence that the shooter himself seemed to be an accurate head shot guy. He took the time to insure that his work created the maximum death toll as had most of the Obama Care killers they had either seen or read about in the newspapers. The shooters had learned in the press that head shots were the most effective manner of producing deaths with their 9mm weapons and their larger than life magazines filled with shells. They had obviously taken that information to heart. The killer had either learned sharp shooting and other sniper talents while in the military or had thought them out long enough by watching a plethora of well filmed crime movies on his TV set over the years. Everyone, it seemed, had become crime drama aficionados in their studies of the newest of forensic melodramas sweeping the nation’s television screens.
“You’d think the government would get the big picture and crack down on the insurance companies and the doctors and put an end to this shit,” Detective Paul Meyers told his sidekick who was Detective Bill Masters, “but they seem to be oblivious to all of this killing. I’m beginning to think they like this sort of thing.”
Bill replied that, “FDR said that nothing happens by mistake. Everything is part of a bigger plan by government. So, yes, it is quite possible they wanted this to happen.”
As he proceeded through the room, the coroner’s gloved hands were dripping wet with the oozing claret. It was all he could do to keep the latex gloves from sticking to his camera as he made his way through the gore and mayhem, popping off photograph after photograph of the dead and dying. Now and then, he could actually hear a drop of blood hitting the floor from someone’s oozing wound.
“Help my son,” a woman pleaded. She was covered with blood. The coroner went over to the young man she was pointing at and felt the youth’s throat.
“There’s no pulse, mam,” he told her. “Your son has passed away.”
“Well, do something,” she begged. “Please help him.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late, mam. He’s dead. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The woman’s moan filled the air. She crawled to her son and hugged his body and rocked up and down with him, pronouncing his name over and over, “Martin! Oh, Martin!”
Coroner Ansel Willis took her picture. It was the least he could do. Helplessness in the midst of mass murder had become one of the nation’s specialties these days. Even the death examining coroner was overwhelmed by the hugeness of the enclosed killing field where he was now forced to inaugurate the grim workload ahead of him. So, Ansel went about his business of placing numbered cards on each body and snapping their pictures. He spoke into his cellphone recorder, saying things like, “Number 87, male, age approximately 35 years, bullet entered head and exited to the right side with blood splatter indicating his body fell in a forward spiral causing the corresponding blood markings to assume an upward arc.”
“Having fun, coroner?” a detective named Dick Phillips asked him.
“Yes, but not as much fun as this gentleman with the entry and exit wounds indicating a perfect skull shot must have had.”
Cruel humor was one of the coroner’s specialties. It seemed to help him in keeping his mental balance under stressful scenes like this one.
“Wow, that does look nice,” the detective said. “I bet your scalpel and your forensic cameras will love that one.”
“I look forward to it,” Coroner Ansel Willis said as he clicked off a picture of the victim. Willis turned away and spoke into his cellphone recorder, “Number 88, middle-aged male with entry and exit wounds to skull from what seems to be a small caliber bullet at very close range. Minor scorch marks close to entry wound indicates it was left there by a very close shot to the victim’s head.” He looked at Detective Phillips. “I bet we’ll find excellent abs back in the autopsy room. Want to place five bucks on it?”
The detective lifted his white shirt revealing a fat beer belly down below. “Can’t be better than my own world famous washboard abs,” Phillips said, smiling sardonically. “Want to kiss them, do you?”
“Sorry, Phillips. The gag reflex would take over, I’m afraid.”
“Yea, baby,” the detective said. “All of you coroner fagots are alike. You only want the coroner’s job so you can cut people without suffering prison time.”
“That and the pay, officer. All that wonderful pay, you know.”
“Tell me. I, too, am a millionaire in work loads.”
The coroner smiled at Phillips. He was an all right cop. A barrel of laughs and an excellent boxer at the annual policeman-fireman fight games.
“You did really well in that fireman boxing match last month, Phillips.”
“The guy gave me a few licks of his own, Ansel.”
“I noticed. But you hung in there.”
“Yea, I did. It was okay.”
“Feel lucky?”
“Yea. The kid was tough. I got in three sucker punches. That’s all that saved me.”
“You were good, Phillips. Own the credit. Wear it proudly.”
“I do. But a little humility helps. Don’t you agree?”
“I suppose. But you earned the bragging rights.”
“Naw, I respect that kid in the fire department too much to make light of him. He was good, Ansel. His punches were right on and very strong. He even pushed me back whenever he hit me. He was good.”
The coroner smiled. Phillips was a tough cop when he needed to be, but he had a heart of gold when the perp was in cuffs. He’d even pray with them at times in the cop car, wishing them well and telling them they could use their jail and prison time to overcome their dope addictions before they destroyed them, turn their lives around, and become better husbands and fathers to their wives and kids. Detective Phillips recalled a recent conversation with an arrestee on his way to prison. “It doesn’t always have to be this way,” he counseled the youth. “I hope you will see the time you spend in the clink as a gift to help you stay away from the drugs and the bad boys you have been dealing with and restart your life in a new and more positive direction. The time you are going to spend in there can be either good for you or bad for you. I’m going to pray it will be good for you. Will you promise me you will pray on it and try to use it for a more positive outcome in your life this time? Don’t let me down now.” Detective Phillips was good at this. The coroner knew several young gangsters whom Phillips had helped to turn around. The officer would sometimes visit their families when they were in jail to make sure they were surviving all right, and, if not, he’d help them to turn their lives around also. He’d even visit the prisoners in the jail to let them know he cared.
“You are a good man, detective,” the coroner told him. “I’ll always respect you for that.”
“I appreciate it, Ansel. I really do.”
Their forensic cameras clicked, enlightening the spaces between bodies as their photographic light beams strobed angrily against the redness. They knew that most of these victims had died in a single heart beat.
29
Robert Adams and Cindy Travis had just finished an afternoon tryst of sex and coffee. Their session had been hot and wonderful. Their coffee and cream were leisurely. They were winding down and coffee was the calm after the storm. Their love trysts had become a regular send off to their keying of physician cars. To each of them, keying was a pleasant gesture. In addition, their inroads into vandalism had molded them closer together. They shared their crimes the way other lovers shared delicious pizzas at restaurants.
“So, you are a naughty girl in more ways than one, Cindy,” Robert said, grinning at her across the breakfast table in the kitchen.
“You aren’t doing so badly yourself,” Cindy ja
bbered happily. “In fact, you are the regular little keystone bandit, aren’t you?”
“You could say that, I suppose,” Robert said, smiling in the midst of their pleasant innuendos.
“You know, there’s something about the sound of paint peeling off a Caddy with a fancy medical seal on its side window that sends me into heaven,” Cindy said. “I don’t know what it is, but it is just so pleasant to hear it.” She laughed. Keying all these cars for her had become downright habit forming. She totally loved the wickedness of vandalizing.
Robert touched Cindy’s hand. “I love you, you know.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Is it mutual?”
“Yes. You know it is, Robert. Why would you need to ask?”
“Because I just need to hear it. That’s all. Maybe I’m insecure. Perhaps my mom was too much of a bitch when I was in fifth grade during the many nights she sent me to my room without eating. Maybe I took it too personally. Who knows?” Robert mused.
“My mom did that to me, as well. Don’t you think it’s just a normal mom thing to do?” Cindy asked.
“I suppose it is. You make it sound so much like moms are Xeroxes of each other. I like to think my mom was special.”
“Face it, Robert. Moms always read the same parenting books. It’s no surprise to realize later that they were all acting alike. They were mostly doing what authors suggested they do.”
“So, you are saying mom didn’t starve me. It was a writer who did it?”
“Something like that. Yes. We are all victims of books, education, TV, and other mind charming venues like that,” Cindy said.
Robert Adams pondered what she had said. She might be right. We were all victims of what we put into our heads. Once an idea entered, it rarely found its way out of the myriad of convolutions, synapses, and nerves that made up a person’s brain and through it their personality. “All of us are victims of our tiny personal databases of triteness, you mean?” Robert asked.
“Exactly.”
In thirty minutes, they were parked. They kissed and locked their doors. Soon, they were both walking through the gigantic hospital garage, finding doctor’s cars, and keying their delicious sides. As they heard the paint peeling off under their key points, they surged with joy. It made their hearts warm to know that Robert’s father was being vindicated. His fight to get back at the medical system for killing his wife was being carried on into the next generation. They had taken the flag and waved it in the face of the millionaires who ran the corruption known as Obama Care. The program was a blatant farce and wasn’t really medical care at all. Instead, it was the total rejection of real care in the name of corporatist profit. Each of their key lines on these physician’s cars were a protest against medically condoned murder. If people were to be treated that way and not supported in their worst moment of medical needs, then no physician was going to drive a Cadillac without key marks. Their windows also almost begged to be scratched, and rightfully so.