A Note

When the call came in, I was not at my desk. My partner, who sits nearby, took the call. After he hung up, he issued an exasperated breath.

En route to the scene, my partner said the coroner was running late but would come as soon as he could. We were to wait. “Apparently,” he said laughing, “he has ‘stiff’ business.” Shaking my head, I looked over my left shoulder, as I merged with traffic, my partner, continued to laugh alone.

Great, it wasn’t bad enough I had to experience the face of death, but I would have to prolong my view of it. Death, the motive, and the method – these were my thoughts on the way to the crime scene. What was the cause of death in this case? Was it an act of random violence, or was death the result of a lover’s quarrel – it often is precipitated by a heartbreak of some sort. For me, death is multi-theoretical. Each case is different. Each motive is different. Each death is intrinsically different because each soul and each person is different.

My reaction to death, regardless of the case, motive, or modus operandi, remains the same. My reaction to death is one of deep sadness. Absurd as it may seem, after all of these years on the force, it feels good to still feel something. My feelings or emotions do not help in solving a case it just comforts me. It is good to know and feel that over the years, the flood of bodies I have seen has not weathered my ideals.

The way I go about solving a case begins with a hunch and ends on observable facts. In each and every case, the facts are derived from loose associations. These loose associations are nothing more than my rambling, roaming thoughts – some of which find a home and become a theory. As with anything grouped, labeled, or sorted, the odd items are thrown out. The innuendoes about a particular case are gathered together and double-checked and cross-referenced against a tangible reality. Knowing what is a tangible reality in each case is not always clear.

Some ‘glamour’ news reporter once asked me if being a homicide ‘dick’ was like being a moviegoer at an endless horror flick. I told her no. She replied, in a doubting tone, “Really. So I’m comparing apples to oranges?” I still remember the “yeah-right” look she gave me when I told her it was more like comparing an apple to a tomato.

Seated in cushioned chairs, moviegoers do not step-in or walk-on blood. They do not touch cold clammy flesh. Moviegoers never smell the stench of a hollow-eyed decaying corpse. They smell, if anything, buttered popcorn.

It is one thing to ponder what I think; it’s another thing to dwell on it. In the world of a homicide detective, philosophy, truth, and death are not intertwined. In the common, moviegoer world, the three are inter-related. Philosophy, truth, and death outside the world of vice are the things, which comprise good literature. In my world, they are irrelevant. In my world: who, what, where, and when are questions often asked and are questions which must be answered. In the policeman’s world, death exceeds art.

All right here we go! I park carelessly; the area has been secured and yellow taped off to the public. My conjecturing must now cease. I must investigate; I must find physical evidence to answer my theoretical suppositions.

My partner, who likes to talk, is gathering background information from a patrol officer. Standing a few feet from the door leading to the crime scene, I look and feel for any signs of forced entry. Nothing is unusual. I take off my wedding band, and stretch the department issued latex gloves to fit. I am not sure if the lab boys have dusted inside the apartment.

I grab the doorknob to the cracking, unpainted door and slowly open it. I smell the familiar smell it invades me. I cough and cover my nose. With my free hand, I open the door wider. The door gives, uttering the creaking sound of age. Through watery eyes, I peer into the dark room. A dull beam of light is coming in through a resinous window, I can make out a stove – it’s open. I tread with regard. I feel and hear the crunch of rice on the dust-covered floor. Not far from the door I had entered, a leaky faucet allows droplets to rhythmically fall onto two aluminum tin plates. On the floor and counter tops, cockroaches crawl. They crawl and scurry through crevices only they seem to know.

Not surprised, I see the reason why we were summoned. The body is slumped over a wooden table. A piece of paper, or a likeness, lies on the floor. Still holding a handkerchief over my nose, with my gloved hand, I bend and pick up the piece of paper. The paper is a doctor’s note. Scrawled over the doctor’s original note are the words: human life is not the weight or severity of woes, but the frequency of pleasures.

A male Caucasian approximately in his late twenties committed suicide. Asphyxiation may or may not be the cause of death. Why? Looking over the medical bills and forms, apparently he found out from his doctor he had AIDS.

Who was he? What were his dreams, or his thoughts as he neared death’s door? What caused him to live like this? Did he contract the HIV virus from a male partner, or from a girlfriend? We may never know what really happened. If he took his own life and we will know that answer after the coroner’s toxicology report, this investigation may be an open and shut case. Imagine that, someone’s life, an open and shut case? No – the sight of a dead person for me is more than a formality.

I place the doctor’s note in a zip-lock bag and exit the dark, one-room apartment. Outside, standing away from my partner who is still talking, I light a cigarette. I hope the coroner will be here soon. I shudder and expel the noxious air.