Inspector
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to inprovise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." Sylvia Plath
3/29/07 - This is a pretty wild story I started in Feb 03 I think and only just finished this week, feb 07.
The Inspector
“Holy fuck! I can not believe you! Do you not understand? This is not a murder, it is a flock of seagulls, I mean crows. I mean CROWS !” The Inspector was irate, flapping his arms to illustrate his point; something like a large black bird might if frustrated by hours of failure to take flight. He was pacing back and forth across a short line of three FBI agents. “What dooo they teach you at your fancy Bureauuu? How to stand in a perfectly dumb line in your black suits and sunglasses? You have all watched too many got dam movies. Can't you see what this is,” The Inspector still enraged jerked his way over to the dead body that was lying stiffly within its chalk outline. Kneeling down and gentlely lifting its head, the Inspector turned the dead head towards the FBI agents as he turned his own back to them, “this is a dead guy,” the Inspector said these last words slowly, for complete understanding. The Inspector let this proclamation sit in the air for a moment as a condescending smirk opened his face and then turned into a nice broad smile. The inspector shook his head and the smile away, and put his rage face back on. “Sure some of you will point to the knife lodged in this guy's back and instantly jump to murder….NO!” The Inspector said this last word, literally frothing at the mouth, conjuring up as much spittle as he could for effect. Unable to gage the reaction of the agents through their black sunglasses the Inspector became even more enraged as they all appeared to be just dumbly standing in line, politely waiting, for a bus perhaps.
The Inspector had had enough, he dropped the dead guys head, stood up, even kicked the corpse before he lurched up to the line, two inches from their black suits. “Get yer pencils and book notes out! I mean pens and pencil pens out! Write this down now!” The Inspector was determined to move these young lumps of clay, even if they were incapable of understanding his lessons. All three of the agents, in unison slowly pulled out their note pads and pointed their pens at the blank pages. None of them knew what to write. The Inspector still invading their space had his eye trained on the butt-end of each pen, moving his attention from one to the other in rapid succession, so as not to miss a single movement.
The agents noticing this sighed inwardly and then, “Ahhhhh,” all together now. Finally the middle agent watching the Inspectors movements for the right moment, wrote, “ Oranges ” on his pad as his pen was being watched. At this the Inspector drew himself up to his full height, and pumped out his chest. “You all believe this to be murder,” he indicated the corpse with a slow sweeping motion of his left arm, “this is not the case, young ones, oh no, this is not so, NOT so….not so…. The Inspector now turned from his pupils and thoughtfully strolled around the perimeter of the yard, perhaps in search of clues.
The Inspector walked around the yard, but only at its edges, next to the picket fence that made its way around the entire household. The Inspector made abrupt ninety degree turns at each corner, only then did he look up from his thoughts to gage the next length of his search. He tried to hide it, but he was also keeping track of the three agents, quickly assessing their activities with a glance. He was very concerned, and did not trust the three: the Middle, the Left, and the Right, they must either be made to learn, or he might be forced to eliminate them. This thought weighed on him as he strolled along the fence, maybe looking for evidence. In the old days, there was no line for the Inspector to deal with, but now he was forced to drag along these new agents. He was not pleased with this arrangement, and in his younger days would certainly have protested, but now he was becoming old, and as he thought, the presence of the agents was in direct correlation to that fact. Secretly, he held a slight hope that he might find an apprentice to carry on his legacy through this ordeal, and the next to come, but none of the three had impressed him as of yet.
The three agents were, by now, bored with watching the Inspector in silent awe, and broke their line to converse among themselves. The Middle firstly, pulled out his note pad and showed the other two his work and the three of them, after some discussion agreed that this was an important clue. There was no discussion as to the obvious relevance of the note that had gained such high approval from the Inspector. None dared to contest that, but it was the Right agent who pointed out that “oranges” should be capitalized, given its importance to the case at hand. The other two agents agreed and they all set to carefully copying the all important note into their notepads, the Middle agent first had to thoroughly cross out his mistaken initial attempt. He had made a stab in the right direction, but he had to also pay for it.
At this point the Inspector broke off his perimeter search and began marching straight at the group of agents. Sensing this determination in their direction, each agent turned his head to see the Inspector moving quickly towards them. As the Inspector marched forward, they noticed as he ripped off a small branch, from a nearby tree, without missing a step or slowing his pace, the Inspector began ripping off all the leaves, once again looking like a furious animal in a suit. As he approached the agents they were all, once again, in their line. The Inspector felt that his new pointer, or learning stick, as he thought of it, would help him move his points across more firmly. “Gentlemen, we need a motive.” The Inspector was making good use of his stick and giving each agent a good long point before he went on. “Everyone knows that a murder does not take place, in fact it is not even a germ of a thought, of a thought without a motive. Now! Tell me what the motive is!” The three agents made gestures to the effect that they did not know the motive, and made no guesses. “You don't know? Do you? Gentlemen without a motive, we have no murder, and no crime scene is this! Without a crime scene we are out of luck boys! If we can not dig up a motive we at least , better make some shit up!”
At this the Left agent simply stated: Lust. “Yes!” cried the Inspector. “Fear, anger, hate, spite, jealously, envy, love, pain, depression, frustration, honor, greed, sex, fun, pride, obligation,” each agent in line helped to form the list, and at each word the Inspector cried, “YES!” He seemed to be very pleased, almost in ecstasy over this list, but at the end the Inspector gestured for them to hurry with his stick, “Ok, Ok, now pick one, the Vultures will be here too soon.”
A moment of silence fell over them all as they pondered deeply the choice of missing motive. Worried, the Left agent simply stated, “Lust” again. At this the Inspector whapped the Agent in the sun glasses with his skinny learning rod, “Think man! Would this dead guy,” he indicated the corpse again, “stab himself in the back if he was horny and lustful, perhaps for some woman? Come on now, that doesn't even make sense. We must do better then that!” Rubbing his now somewhat bent sun glasses the Left looked across the line to his companions whom were standing very still, almost not breathing, staring straight ahead, trying not to make any moves that might get their own sun glasses whapped. The Inspector was now pacing in a tight circle, swinging his stick in the air, now and then, just to hear its little sound.
“Now look here,” the Inspector suddenly looked up at the agents with a kinder smile, “we have a dead guy, possibly murdered – I'll give you that, in his own backyard, a knife in his back, no real witnesses and lust as a motive. We know that the dead guy was alive at 4 PM , as testified to by the pizza delivery man. Somehow, at some point between 4 PM and 6 PM this man was stabbed in the back with his own knife. Some one did this that is beyond doubt. Presumably he was stabbed inside the house, and stumbled his way out back, as the wide open back door would indicate. This much is irrefutable. It is conceivable that this was a first time murderer, as it seems to have been done without prior planning; no solid plan at all went into this, nor was this carried out with much accuracy. The knife is merely half way in, and is hardly near a vital area. The murderer is lucky to have succeeded at all.” Each man scrunched his face up now, into fearsome expressions of complicated thought trying to un-puzzle the mystery before them.
Taking a long deep breath, the Inspector let his words sink in before he went on, “Now, what made this dead guy stumble into his back yard to die? Did he think he could call for help in the backyard? Maybe some friendly neighbor would be out gardening weeds and notice his stab wound problem. But why wouldn't he think to use the phone, or go out the front door where it would be more likely to meet a random passer by willing to lend a hand to his case. Perhaps there was something blocking the preferred route to salvation. What was it?”
All throughout the Inspectors idle pondering, Agent Right had been waiting impatiently to speak, but it looked more like he was waiting to pee, as he was barely contained within his black suit. “Yes, yes what is it Righty?” The Inspector was annoyed at the disruption, and yet was eager to refute any comment the line had to offer. To put some distance between himself and the Inspectors comments, the Right took some time to clear his throat and fiddle with his tie before he began laying out his theories. The Inspector listened to the Right's explanation in full, as he bore his old grey eyes into his black tie knot. He was having fantasies of wrapping that black tie around the Right's neck, and choking the stupid out of him, and then he woke up.
“You what!? You honestly think that those red stains on the pizza mans shirt had anything, anything! to do with this? I suppose you think its blood. Why? Because its red? I suppose you want an RNA test and a lie interrogation detector machine. Tell me, Mr. Right, what color is pizza sauce?”
The Right adjusted his sunglasses before he spoke, “Red.”
“Don't you do that thing with your sunglasses at me! Your GOT DAM right its RED!” The Inspector was yelling at those glasses which he could not see through, no matter how close he pushed his nose at them; he was screaming as if it might be possible to be loud enough to break through them to see the agent's eyes. He was clearly exhausted now from his many outbursts, as he lowered his head and walked slowly over to the picket fence, where he wrapped both hands around a stake, and raised his eyes to the sky, as if pleading the heavens for mercy. The line stood still and waited. After only a moment of rest, he violently kicked at the bottom boards of the fence, and then, after collecting himself, calmly walked back to the line. “Gentlemen you are forgetting the motive,” The Inspector let out an extremely exasperated sigh as if he was about to just give up. “I have tried to explain the importance of the motive before. We must ask ourselves: Why would a pizza delivery man want to kill his only customer? No money is stolen, and nothing that we can discern of value has been taken from the house, all of this leaves us with an elusive motive that does not fit with the usual mold of murder. Lust can't be the motive.”
After an awkward silence, in which each man eventually adjusted his tie, in succession, like an addictive sneeze; the Middle spoke up, “The deceased, or “dead guy” had no known enemies, no problems with co-workers, friends, or family, a stable marriage, and is not a minority in race, sex, or creed; which makes him ineligible for hate-crime. Whoever killed this man did not hate him.”
“For our purposes it is impossible to hate this man,” the Inspector nodded towards the Middle as he spoke. The Inspector was now in a visibly calmer mood, still panting a little from his last tirade, but approachable. All four men were surprised by this easy back and forth, and were confused into silence. After another round of searching glances between all of them, the Middle spoke up again, “The fact that the deceased ordered and ate some of the large cheese pizza, indicates that this was not a suicide.” The Left eagerly awaiting his chance for redemption chimed in, “As well as the knife in his back.” Again all four were stunned, witnessing this apparent progress in the case.
“Inspector Sir,” The Left looked over his sunglasses in an attempt to be personable towards the calmed Inspector, “What about the oranges?”
“The what?” was the immediate response, the Inspector didn't ask really, as he was racing through his brain trying to determine if “oranges” was some new investigative procedure he was supposed to have learned by now. Luckily for the Inspector the Middle jumped into cover the Left. “Perhaps we should re-trace our steps Inspector?”
The inspector nodded and abruptly walked over to the body and pulled out a large piece of white chalk, he bent down and began re-chalking its outline and replaced its legs inside; which he had kicked out of position earlier. He seemed eager to complete this task; the Agents had noticed early on that the Inspector kept an impeccable crime scene, very tidy. The Middle busied himself untangling the bright yellow police tape encircling the entire back yard. (The multiple layers of yellow tape that encircled the entire property were the first task the Inspector had insisted on.) While the Right and Left moved inside; the Right checking on the half eaten, however still fairly fresh pizza, and the left searching for oranges.
“Come on Mr. Middle,” the Inspector called out to the remaining agent after he was once again satisfied with the bodies position. The Middle somewhat astonished at this request seemed unsure of how to react, he looked to his right and left, wondering how he could still be the middle without the others. “Come on, that tape is plenty straight,” the Inspector prodded again in a most kindly way, and the middle obeyed in kind. The pair now entered the typical two story suburban home through the opened and never closed back door, walked through a short hallway to the kitchen door. They politely argued about who should open the door for whom, and were stopped outside for some time. As the argument about who had a greater obligation to open doors for whom, the Left finally opened the door for them. Lefty had heard the Inspectors voice through the door and wanted to show off his discovery. The Left proudly held out two big oranges at arms length towards the Inspector with a huge grin between them. The Inspector took the oranges and moved into the house. The Inspector searched the kitchen drawers until he found a small pairing knife; he then eagerly sliced into the orange and began peeling it open. More confused Left had watched with excitement, expecting the Inspector to find another clue to add to his orange discovery. The Left watched some orange juice ooze its way onto the floor before walking out of the kitchen to take a seat in the living room.
The Right entered the kitchen from its tiny attached bathroom with a flush. He immediately noticed the knife in the Inspectors hand and began searching the drawers for a match to the murder weapon. The handle was exactly the same. The Right was pulling out silverware from many different drawers while the Inspector and the Middle idly snacked on the oranges, politely moving whenever the Right would come their way. Shortly the Right found a perfect match, exactly the same length and design as the knife in the corpse's back. There were boxes of them. In the bottom cupboards in buckets and bags, some loose and some more organized; the Right began pulling them out with both hands, they slid across the linoleum floor in all directions. “Hey, watch it now!” the Inspector was annoyed with this dangerous lack of concern for his feet, as well as the Middle's black boots. Both the Inspector and the Middle were generously sharing the last orange, as the Middle was quickly winning the Inspector's friendship.
“Look at these! They are exactly the same, and there are so many of them!” The Right was holding up as many knives in both hands as he could for the Inspector to see. “Yes, yes, we all know the knife is a common kitchen utensil of the victims own,” the Inspector chuckled a little and gave the Middle a sly smile. The Inspector was still munching on the last of the oranges, spraying juice everywhere like a water sprinkler. He was in fact aiming at the Rights sunglasses, with an awkward jutting of his jaw.
The Right, suspicious of the Inspectors behavior, simply stepped back and dropped all ten knives on the floor at once, only through some fate did he not injure his feet. The Inspector looked down at his own feet, surrounded by knives stabbed into the floor and he dropped his orange. With this many murder weapons he thought this must really be a big case and he was now out of ammunition anyway, so he arranged his posture to once again assume control over the investigation.
The Inspector was refreshed, and looked up at the Middle kindly as if they had just completed some formal bonding ritual, and were now linked together in spirit for life. The Middle, although somewhat disturbed by this, smiled back warmly. “Well now,” the Inspector suddenly boomed, clapping his hands together, ready for work, “let's check for clues upstairs men!”
“I was just going to search up there,” the Right ruefully stated in no particular direction and towards no one. “Sure you were son, sure you were,” the Inspector aimed his nasty smile directly at the Right but never caught his eyes. Moving through the living room the group picked up the Left dumbly staring at a black TV screen, and they all took to the stairs.
The Inspector was in front, of course, leading the way. He was always a bit slow, due to his age, but also while in search mode he insisted on looking at everything. Even still it was clear to the agents behind him that these stairs were proving difficult for him. The Inspector tried to pass off his frequent stops as part of his clue searching, but he wasn't fooling anyone, he wasn't angry. Finally out of boredom the Right attempted to just pass by the old man, before the Left stopped him, and shook his head: No.
By now the Inspector was grasping for breath as well as excuses, and reasons to still be on the third step. Remarking about the hairstyle in a picture on the wall of a young girl, and the inferior construction of the stair case, which he blamed for his inability to continue upwards, he explained that because this house was one of the “new ones” it lacked the proper support required by the human, or “homo sapiens” foot as the Inspector continued. The Middle was now painfully aware of the Inspector's infirmity, and was attempting to keep the whole line engaged in his random comments, with excessive body language and constant head nodding. He seemed to be incredibly enthused about the history of stair casing and its relationship to the development of these “homo sapiens”. However, after the tedious lecture, the Inspector fell silent, and it was obvious that he had no power to move another step. Even the Right was frozen now with terror in the awkward moment.
The Left began to gingerly reach out his hand to the Inspector, even to his own surprise. His helpful hand seemed to move on its own, before he could even think. But the Middle noticed and quickly before anything else could happen bent down, and engulfed the Inspector in his arms and ran up the rest of the stairs, promptly placing the old man back on the ground. Getting rid of him as if he was a horrible disease, but still with enough care to ensure that he was able to stand at least.
The Inspector was still in a bent position when he took to his own feet, but he slowly straightened himself out like a bent straw. The Left and the Right remained standing on the third step, with a quick smile at each other they now quickly moved up, eager to put the incident behind. Nothing was said as they all spread out upstairs searching in different rooms.
Nothing out of the ordinary was found in the upper rooms. The bedrooms, bathrooms, bed, bathtub, everything was in order, and undisturbed. As the Inspector stated, the killer seemed not to have been up there. The Right, however, did after poking around in the closets and drawers, and under the beds, found more knives in various sizes, shapes, and lengths. He did not mention this to anyone, and even hid this new find, as he made his own secret plans for the investigation.
Feeling his confidence again the Inspector said that there would certainly be important clues in the basement, and they all headed for the stairs again. As the group approached the stairs nervousness quieted them, and they were all left milling around the first step suddenly becoming very interested in the style of wallpaper used in the hallway. Slowly, while keeping their faces turned directly to the wall the Right and Left squirmed past the old man and reached the stairs. The Left and Right quickly descended as the Inspector and Middle lagged behind, as if conducting a last search of the top step. Both men stood motionless on the stop step for a moment, before the Inspector turned his head and looked into the Middle's eyes and said, “Have I ever told you…” The Inspector once again had his most kindly Grandpa face on, and the Middle, eager to end this awkward pause, scooped up the Inspector before he could finish, and flew him down the stairs.
The Right and Left were already at the basement steps that were just off the kitchens backdoor, and had opened the door to reveal nothing. There as total blackness, there didn't seem to even be a basement, and they were both staring with wide mouths and scrunched up faces. There was no light, and no stairs or railing anyone could see, no floor or boxes of old photo albums and post cards. It seemed to be a mere black hole, and certainly contained no clues. When the Middle and the Inspector stepped over to look they noticed as a dark shadow seemed to fall over them, as if the darkness was flowing out of the door way and negating the light of the kitchen. Each man began to feel nauseous after only a couple minutes of staring at this pure black doorway. It seemed that nothing was supporting the house but the darkness, and they all half expected the house and everything in it to simply fall and be swallowed whole. Finally the Middle closed his eyes and shut the door. They all began some rapid blinking and murmuring before the Inspector suggested that they get out the front door. Each man stumbled slowly through the house towards the front door and all the light pouring in from the front windows looked like salvation to their eyes. The Inspector made it to the door first and urged the line forward, “Come on men we need to interroize the pizza man and the little girl that called 911.”
The four men stepped out the front door of the house and into the circus. Half a dozen police cruisers were parked in a line covering the front of the house and their drivers standing around smoking and talking, obviously waiting for some action. A TV News truck had gotten through first however, and had jumped the sidewalk and was sitting in the center of the front yard spewing cables in all directions. Peeking over their polite neighborly fences were the neighbors. Others coming from further away and without a fence to hide behind were, as yet, still standing behind the yellow police tape, already a few were poking the tape and testing its strength. The obvious weakness of the tape barrier made some fearful and others anxious, it had not escaped anyone's thoughts that it would only take one moment, or one excuse for the barriers to come down.
The light and noise was a shock for the Inspector and his Line, after being in the dark and deadly house; it took them a few moments to assess the situation and spot their target: The pizza man.
“Hey man, I don't know anything; I just take the boxes to the address and get my tip money. I don't know anything about what's in the box, I swear I didn't even open this one to check it or anything else. This guy here,” the pizza delivery man indicated the house with a pointer finger, “he just come out and gave me the 12.50 and closed the door that's it.” Pizza man was leaning up against his car with the “Mr. Pizza” sign stuck to the top. He was going over his story for one of the neighbors, practicing for the real thing and putting a lot of effort into it too. The curious neighbor had been bored for a while and was staring off towards the live news crew setting up shop. “Yeah man I know what you're saying, you're just the pizza man, you're not even supposed to know anything about your customers or what they are getting, just the messenger; whatever they order you give it to them, no questions asked.” As the neighbor finished the Inspector and his line had started to surround the pizza man, aware of their approach the neighbor retreated quickly and made it back to his own patch of lawn where he felt safe.
The Inspector strolled up to Mr. Pizza, and looked him over for a while before he spoke; the line followed his lead and they all looked him up and down in unison. The pizza man had started to sweat. He was starting to smell like a human pizza in his cheese covered uniform with matching pizza sauce stains on both shirt sleeves. Even the mans face looked like a pasty white pizza pie freckled with bits of pepperoni. Disturbed by the pizza mans smell and appearance the Inspector decided to take a step back. The Inspector thought the man needed to be grilled so he started off firing away at him with questions about his jobs and girlfriends, and where he went to high school and what his grades were and what his favorite toy was at age 4 and again what it was at age 14. This went on for sometime and the Line began to look at each other wondering if the Inspector had fallen into a continuous loop. Finally the Middle decided he would have to save his buddy again. Waiting for a silent moment the Middle jumped into the line of questions and asked, “How did the deceased look to you when you saw him? Was he agitated? Angry? Calm?”
“Um sure, yeah, yes he was.”
“He was what Sir?”
“I dunno man, he seemed normal to me, I mean I only talked to him for a minute, less then that, how should I know what's up with some dead guy? All I know is that he wanted a pizza, he was probably just hungry.”
“Did you not ask him how he was?”
“Oh yeah, ok, yeah I did ask him that, but you see we are supposed to ask everyone that. It's like part of the rules, to be a good team player, but its not like I mean it, it's just something you say. You don't have to care.”
“Ok Sir that is fine.” The line paused for a moment, with Mr. Pizza almost off the hook. “One last thing…Did you see anyone else when you were here earlier?”
“Yeah the little girl, I heard she found him, the dead guy I mean.” The Pizza man was nervously smoothing down the front of his uniform with both hands over and over like he was playing a washboard.
Somewhat confused by his own line of questioning and a bit miffed about the line's take over of the interrizations the Inspector simply wandered off on break. He soon found him self surrounded by the Vultures with their cameras and news anchors. Fleeing from them he aimlessly ran into the little girl witness that called 911 and he remembered what he was doing again.
The girl was 11 or 14, bright and shiny like most young people, but the Inspector still didn't see her and almost knocked her down before he knew it. His eyes were bad. The Inspector quickly knelt down to be less scary to the child and he put on his kindly old grandpa face too. The girl was quite tall and Inspector Grandpa was now staring at her belly button instead of her face. The Inspector lost himself in the little black hole he was staring into and wondered if this had anything to do with the strange basement in that strange house with all the knives. “Ahem…ahem…,” finally the girl cleared her throat to end this awkward moment and woke the Inspector up.
“Can you tell me exactly what you saw? Everything.”
“I don't know what I saw. I could just tell it was bad this time and I knew I should call the police.”
“What do you mean by this time?” The Inspector was staring very sternly into the girl's belly button. She couldn't see his look under his bushy grey eyebrows, but she knew this was serious.
“I've seen him do it before.”
“You mean the corpse?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anyone else around the house before you called 911?”
“No, I don't think anyone.”
“Could you be saying he did this to himself somehow?”
“Yes.”
The Inspector stood up now, knees cracking all the way. The little girl looked up at the Inspector now. “How is that possible,” he said above the girls head and to no one in particular. “You have been most helpful, now go home and don't get lost.” The Inspector turned the girl around and nudged her away from the scene. As he turned to go confront this corpse of a man the girl said, “But I am home,” but the Inspector never heard her.
The Inspector stomped off heading for the back yard and instantly gaining the full attention of the vultures and soon everyone else as they all knew something what about to happen and they were not going to miss it.
All now came round the corner of the house together as a high school marching band might, determined and innocent. The Inspector was in front as any conductor would be, and was, at first, the only one of the group to have his eyes and attention trained on the corpse. The reporters, cameramen, the crews, and the line were all preparing themselves within their own worlds for the various outcomes which now seemed to be soon upon them. No one knew what was going to happen and who would say what and whom would be held responsible. The three agents had good reason to fidget and conjure up fantastical stories to tell in their defense. Both the Right and the Left were secretly eyeing the Middle trying to discern how easily useful he could be in their respective cases. Both knew that much of the pressure would fall to them, as all three were certain by this point that the Inspector was insane and about to prove this fact gloriously in front of a crowd. The Left knew that push would come, and then shove, and that the Right would attack in his attempt to defend his own interests; the Right had similar thoughts. Of course, the Middle knew this, and was preparing for the inevitable attack from within. The Middle knew his position relied entirely on the appeasement of the Right and the Left and the holding of the line in three. The Middle was the only one aware that there was no chance for them outside of their stone faced line.
The Inspector led the procession, furiously stomping into the backyard, but as he turned the corner he began to slow, however still stomping his feet; this similarly slowed the gaggle behind him.
The Inspector could not believe his eyes. The corpse was moving. The corpse was already up on one knee when the Inspector first noticed. The corpse was shaking, unsteady, one hand on the up right knee, elbow up, and his upper body was bent forward and his knife was still sticking straight up in the air. It seemed as if he was throwing up, and pausing between movements, which were obviously difficult for a dead man. Slowly, as the rest of the crowd noticed and all stopped to stare, the corpse pulled its other leg under itself and wearily began standing up, tipping to the right and moving slightly forward, as if at the whim of any motion. The corpse did stand, facing away from the crowd it spread its legs to stand more stable, and as this was accomplished it slowly brought its head up. Be sides the knife poking from its back and its apparently lifeless arms dangling down, the corpse looked as if alive, not well, but alive.
All eyes were fixed on its head, expecting to see a horrific zombie with jagged fangs when it turned to greet them. The head did not turn however, the arms began to raise both of them at first, but soon the left one stopped and then the beast let out a mournful howl, the only sound to break the silence, but not enough to wake any of the stunned crowd. As if the corpse only now realized its wound it quickly brought its uninjured right arm up and over its head, down its back clawing. It was apparently trying to reach the offending knife in its back, but was unable to even come close.
Frustrated and clearly in pain the corpse's body fell forward and took one step, throwing its arms down its sides, the corpse seemed to be more lifeless at this point then any other. The corpse spent the next few minutes groaning towards the dirt doubled over, taking a few tiny steps forward and backward in no direction.
Absolutely stunned no one from the crowed moved or spoke, as if the world had stopped to watch this phenomena and nothing else. By now the corpse was out of its chalk outline and scuffing its white boarders with its small steps. At this the Inspector was awakened and cried out, as his own body seemed to be thrown forward in astonishment, “My crime scene!” The Inspector had no understanding of the event he was witnessing, along with everyone else, but he did know that his investigation was a complete failure in the face of this confused corpse.
He was completely overwhelmed by the audacity of such a thing as whatever this was, not only did it move, it destroyed his meticulous work, and with the medium of chalk which he hated. Worse was the fact that all prior theories were wrong, as he had not accounted for this possibility in the least. The Inspector could feel his reputation being scrubbed away by a known corpse of a man; he felt it on his body like steel wool. The Inspector grimaced and set his jaw, he had taken the position of his legs spread out wide and his arms dangling in front. None of the crowd or the line had anything to say or moved, but they were now unsure which man was more frightening.
As if angered by the loss of attention the corpse suddenly threw up his body, with a loud growl flinging its arms back as his body rose and made another attempt at the mysterious wounder in his back. All eyes were on the corpse. Once again the knife was out of reach, and the corpse fell forward in defeat. This time there was no giving up, as soon as the fingers touched the grass the body flew back up, with another ill fated grab. The corpse was now engulfed in a painful rage; all sense had left the scene, as the body rocked itself up and down in a one corpse wave. Again and again the corpse threw itself back on its heels reaching vainly for the knife. By now, though buried by the sounds made by the corpse, the peanut gallery was gasping and groaning. The middle made a few steps forward, as if intending to enter the back yard with the body, perhaps with some vague idea of helping. However, both the right and the Left, in unison, pulled the Middle back, shaking their heads.
Just as this horrific display was reaching the point beyond shock, the corpse with a mighty scream finally managed, beyond all reason, to barely grasp the handle of the knife and pull it out about and inch. Obviously relieved by this success the corpse bent over, on to both knees, its face almost in the dirt. Only a few seemingly peaceful moments passed until panic struck again, as the corpse realized in this position gravity was working against him, and as if suddenly, for the first time again, realizing that it had a knife in its back. At this the corpse flew up again bending backwards, hoping the knife would simply fall out on its own, it did not. The corpse began shaking back and forth, causing an obviously major amount of pain to itself.
This was far too much for some of the audience, one middle aged woman simply passed out, dropping her make up kit, scattered everywhere among the crowd. Three more retreated to the front yard, as if planning a counter offensive that required un-disturbed thought. The line of agents was broken, as the Left was on his knees litterly weeping and watching every development unfold; the Middle was calmly patting his back and turning his head away from the spectacle. The Right was uncomfortably shifting his weight from one foot to the other so often that he seemed to be dancing and scratching random parts of his body all at once, almost well enough to be on MTV. A couple camera men stayed along with their anchors, one of the cameramen had secretly turned off his camera and was merely looking at a blank black, contemplating how much longer this would go on, and how much longer he could get away with this.
Perfectly enraged the corpse had its legs back and was running in a tight circle, shaking his body, and flailing its arms, for lack of anything better to do. The Inspector himself had retreated a few steps, when at last the corpse jumped into the air landing heavily and with a massive grunt. This dislodged the knife and it slowly slid out of the it's back and plunked onto the ground. Once again relieved the corpse fell flat on its face and ceased to move.
After a few moments, with the Inspector in the lead, the line approached cautiously. They made a half circle over the corpse, but only the Inspector dared to get close, he bent over and approached from the feet. Still holding his learning stick, the Inspector gently pushed it into the corpse's side. Pulling it back and waiting a moment for a response, there was none. The Inspector shot a glance back at the line, once again formed. As if prodded on by this fact the Inspector then jabbed the point of his stick into the head of the corpse. There was no response. Turning back, the Inspector asked the line, “By Lucifer, is this man even dead?”
No one could answer that question. The line stood motionless. Frustrated the Inspector pushed his way through the line, breaking their form, and repeated the question to the stunned group. No one even shrugged.
While no one was looking the corpse had stood up again and was taking steps. The Line that was no line scattered; the Left ran back into the house while the Right and Middle both jumped the fence. The Inspector turned to see the dead man walking towards him with tiny uneven steps and began to walk backwards himself. The Inspectors anger losing out to his fear as his retreat sped up so that he was running backward straight into the crowd of reporters, crashing into them and waking them up. They all turned and ran.
All but one, one news woman with a large black microphone she held tightly in front of her like a kind of magic shield between her and the news; she looked so brave, but she was in such shock of the beast of a supposed murder scene in front of her that she was too stunned to even think about being afraid. She was frozen into her role.
The crazy corpse moved towards her scuffing its feet along the ground, clearly confused and dazed. Susie looked into the corpse's eyes and the first question of the interview fell from her.
“What is your name Sir, for the record?”
“ Gary …Bale,” was the answer, surprisingly clear and articulate from a corpse. He was looking into the reporters face with glazed, crossed eyes and seeing one big eye and a lot of blond hair, like in some circus mirror.
“And how do you feel just now,” Susie had done this so many times.
“I'm OK,” was her second answer.
“Do you know who did this to you and why?”
“It was them!” The corpse obviously angered by this question threw its arms up in the air as if signaling a field goal and yelled, “They did it! They always do it!”
Susie moved back from the corpse for the first time, and realized that she was alone. Alone with an angry corpse. Still she managed, “Who is…”, before she turned and ran, ran like she hadn't run since high school, ran around the front of the house, through the camera crew that left her, across the street and into a short picket fence that sent her face first into the dirt. And that is where she stayed, too terrified to even open her eyes or move, knowing that that thing was about to stab her in the back with that knife.
No one followed Susie across the street, they only watched. No one lifted her out of the dirt or told her no one was stabbing. Only a cat found her later to wake her.
The crowd of shocked and confused looked at each other puzzling. No one even knew what question to ask of the others, and no one expected any sort of answer. The Inspector stood above the crowd and looked over them, and he knew they needed a leader, and he thought about it for a while…Did he really want this kind of trouble at his age? If he retired right now would anybody care…would anyone notice?
Abruptly the Inspector turned the corner to face the scene of the crime, and as he expected, the corpse. But the corpse was not there; it had moved into the back again and was hovering over its chalk outline. The Inspector was agitated again. The corpse was not where it should be, and was surly destroying the crime scene even further. The Inspector flew into the backyard in his trademark rage, pointing an accusing finger all the way, as if directing the whole groups fear and uncertainty in the proper direction. They all followed him.
The Inspector stopped his assault just a few feet from the corpse, stamping his feet fiercely into the ground. “Now look here Mr….Dead…guy, you're supposed to be dead.”
“Who are you to claim my life?” The corpse was bent forward its arms dangling down almost touching the ground, it was still standing. It was obvious that the corpse was not feeling well.
The Inspectors face scrunched itself up as he tried to answer the corpse's question. He finally simply said, “I am the Inspector in charge of this crime scene, you are the deceased, that means you're dead, and you're supposed to be in that outline over there,” he pointed to the spot. “I have already re-done your outline several times and frankly I'm getting sick of it! You better have a damn good reason for making such a problem out of this routine death scene!”
“It was they…” the corpse muttered quietly.
The Inspector moved closer to hear the secret, looking quickly around to see that he was the only one. “They who,” the Inspector asked feeling that he was finally getting to the bottom of this nightmare.
“They, they, they, them! You know who I mean god damn it look at what becomes of me.” The corpse swayed its arms from side to side, angry, but not quite able to show it any longer.
The Inspector whispered, “It's them isn't it? Damn I didn't even see it until now, all these new terrorists, how am I supposed to keep up with them? They are everywhere and no one knows them. They have weapons everywhere but we can't find them here, no they are somewhere else. But where is that somewhere else? No one knows, it didn't used to be like this believe me Sir, my job used to be more professional, we used to know what was happening we knew who they were before they even did it. No one got murdered like this, it's not human. Not like you,” the Inspector trailed off thinking about all of the possibilities this new evidence told.
“I've been killing myself the same way everyday for years,” the corpse wheezed, it was visibly getting weaker with each word. “It was never hard like this…before. “You have done this before,” the Inspector asked quizzically. “and often?” One corpse eye turned slowly to look at the Inspectors dumb face, “…it's easy, the weapons are everywhere, anyone will give you something.” The corpse was no longer moving and seemed to sway slightly with the wind. “Its usually quick, I never even knew it was happening before, something went wrong this time…no one will stop you…if you hear me don't look at it, its easier not to know any of this, no one should know this…if I could erase it all...” The corpse was only a whisper now as it slumped to the ground without a sound in a heap, on its knees and neck. “This isn't suicide, you have to believe me, do you see how it happened? Tell me you saw it happen, it never stops, you have to see it, everyone knows…” The corpse had run out of words, with its last breath in the dirt, “Will you…help me Inspector?”
The Inspector heard the words and looked into the glazed eyes that no longer shown with life and he knew it was finally over. He stood up and pushed the corpse that was now truly a corpse down flat with his foot and heard a crack. He didn't bother to look around anymore to see who might have seen this or to see how he quickly placed the corpse inside the chalk outline again and turned its broken neck back around. Taking a quick moment to check his work, the Inspector took a deep breath and turned to meet the crowd. “It had been them all along,” the Inspector thought.
He marched confidently and professionally over to the shocked and drooling group, raised both of his hands, and said, “Nothing to see here folks.” Everyone, including the Line breathed a sigh of relief and turned away from the scene and began moving away tiredly. No one had the appetite to see anything else. Only the Line had stayed, and only because they had some official duty to stay; after tidying up, the final details complete the Inspector noticed the Line. He walked around behind them and patted each man on the back and then pushed them towards the street, “Home with you now,” he said, and they were finally free of him and it.
Confused the Line had little to say at first but the Left finally broke, “Who is this They, really? Do you know?” “What does home with you now mean? Are we really supposed to go home?” “I just want to know if we passed.” “He did pat us on the back…” They walked to their black car with super secret tinted windows, only the Left had his hand on the door handle; no one seemed to want to leave yet and none of them could imagine wanting to do this again. The sun was setting very deep now, only just above the horizon, its glow being canceled out by suburbia lighting up to fend off the darkness. Silhouettes of those neighbors still with enough energy to be curious filled the windows.
“The Humble and Endangered Yeti,” said the Right while flicking his burnt out cigarette across the street.
“What,” the other two said together.
“That's what THEY stands for,” the Right laughed, “why not, what else could it mean?”
“It just a word, it could mean anybody, everybody, you, me, them, they,” the left pointed two fingers at them both.
The Middle pushed his fingers away, “Are you saying we killed him? We somehow made that…thing die? He laughed, “I'd rather believe we just saw an ancient Yeti death ritual.”
“Wait,” said the Right, “was that the Inspectors lesson? He said early this morning that it wasn't a murder. Could that have been a murder if everyone,” he waved his arms around pointing at random houses, “was involved somehow? If everyone did it then, what, it's a suicide?”
“Are you trying to say that we should be handcuffing everyone in this neighborhood? Everyone that knew him? Everyone that ever had anything to do with this man, and charge them with murder? Even if they only had 1/10000 of a part in it?”
“Yes!” the Left exclaimed, “that's it, even the corpse, he was his own murderer.”
“You can't be your own murderer stupid, its called suicide; man how did you figure out those pants this morning?”
“Is it suicide if he had that much help,” asked the Middle.
The place felt empty now, only the street lights buzzed quietly, not even the dogs were out tonight. The windows were all empty and the TV glow pulsed safe inside the houses.
The Left opened the car door and flung it open, “So the Inspector was wrong, it is a murder, it was a murder all along.
“Every death is a murder, and everyone did it.”