THE CONSEQUENCES HAVE TRAGIC SIDE EFFECTS
It is difficult to find good detectives, in any given profession there are the redundant practitioners: people that know the rules and know how to repeat them; and there are the innovators, people that break the rules and know how to create them or recreate them. Lauren was a rule breaker, even as she was conservative in all other aspects of her life, her investigative procedures were innovative, and less you doubt them, I put forth the evidence of how she was willing to listen to Habakkuk when any other normal career minded detective would have ignored him and done well to do so. So it is that we find ourselves in Ogle’s office, not far from the Akashic records by any measure, but at least in a place that has found some form of comfort zone in the normal everyday act of pursuing criminals.
“Well Lauren,” Speaks the Captain, “we sure scraped the bottom with that one.” “Yes Captain,” The term captain as she is using it now, carelessly but firmly implies she is trying to keep her job, “mistakes were made, procedure wasn’t followed, I think it is possible to imagine that we pursued a case that had no motive, and that had far fetched witnesses and suspects.” Ogle, was not above being on top when the situation afforded him the pedestal, and more so when the opponent was a cocky woman that could outdo him at every turn, “A case that had no motive, Lauren! We didn’t even pursue a case Lauren, you’re sitting here acting like you’ve only made mistakes but you haven’t made any mistakes you have jumped off reality Lauren, you’re no longer here, and you’ve almost made me hop on your blood thirsty trail of a woman that doesn’t really have any fundamental flaws other than those that we couldn’t all go to jail for!”
Lauren of course, still believes that her attitude has been proper, that her boss is wholly wrongheaded, and that given enough time she will prove him and the system all wrong, she just needs more time, more time to investigate, more time to access files and witnesses, and eventually she will be vindicated. This is classic Lauren, for if Lauren had been, for instance, to dinner with Bacchus, she would have told the God of Food and Wine, that he was drinking and eating to much, that gluttony was an abomination and that he was bound to have a heart attack, closed arteries, high blood pressure, etc. And that would not even be the terrible part, she would not have told Bacchus, that she thought she was completely 100% correct, but rather would know it in her heart that through his heart failure, brain fart and mortal obesity, Lauren’s puritan self was convinced, that Bacchus would not only find out that she was correct, he would be so far busy proving her correctness through every illness known to excesses and hedonism, that eventually the post of God of wine and food would be eliminated by the universe and some angel would be made nutrition expert and life extensor. An oddity considering that Gods depend on people to die to worship them. And yet Lauren did not doubt this, the fact that she was killing a god did not much matter to her, she was right, that is all that mattered to her. So in keeping with that righteous attitude, Lauren continued her dialog with the captain, “Yes, you are right sir, it was sincerely awfully careless of me, I certainly learnt a lot these last few days, I am just sorry that I put you through this, and I am more sorry for myself;” she pauses, her head descending as if motioning grace, “Captain I still have so much to learn from you.”
Ogle wasn’t stupid, but he could believe in a compliment if it served him to keep one of his top detectives, which he needed to maintain a world class investigative team, so he walked over to Lauren, feeling a bit more powerful than he should have, “Hey kid, you just made a few bad choices, but you are on the right track, we are winners you and I, and we will continue to catch the bad guys, and beat the bureaucrats and make this the best precinct in all of these United States.” Lauren didn’t really care for all of the connotations that the captain had attached to all that, but she cared that the one that mattered was attached, she was still a detective, she could still wear a badge, carry a gun and have access to all the necessary research and documents to catch her triple abduction and murder criminal.
The captain was nice enough to oust Lauren out of the office, “Now take the day off, go on, you need a rest.” She did, smiling like a little girl that has been left off the hook for fucking the boy next door. She nears her house, an ambulance forces her to pull over so that it can pass by, a fire truck forces her to pull over to also pass her by, a cop car pulls her over, the officer recognizes the driver, “I think you better come with me ma’am.” Lauren, sensing that something is wrong and having complete faith in the arm of the law, parks her car and becomes a passenger with the nice patrolman that has picked her up. They reach the ambulances and fire trucks, her window is closed, it is drizzling slightly, the window remarks her lightly red natural lips, her medium eyes increasing with proximity, her house in flames.
I would like to say in flames, the house, with the parrots within, and with Loki, was completely up in smoke, there was hardly any wall standing, a remarkable explosion had taken hold of the place and had embarked on complete erasure, not a memory. Not that Lauren would have many memories, she was a child of the instant, whatever played the moment that is what she was playing, she did not lose anything here that could not be replaced at your local home depot; but for one thing, she slams into the ground off the side of the cop’s patrol car her eyes awash in tears, “Oh my Loki, oh my Loki I love you, where are you, please tell me that you are alright, Loki come back to me, Loki please forgive me, Loki, Loki,” the nice cop guy with the bad news tries to calm her, equally to respect her because her mountain of suffering also carries a badge that towers over his, “it’s ok Detective, it’s ok, everything is going to be ok.” “No it’s not, not it’s not going to be ok, where is my Loki cat, where is my Loki cat,…” Too difficult to tell what else she is saying.
The fireman’s Chief approaches, obviously notified that it was one of their own; firemen and policemen share a spiritual address, but the fire chief didn’t like Lauren, he knew of her, he hadn’t liked how she had handled some pyromaniac case a few years back, he held her responsible for all of his men that had died putting out those fires, six in total; she had told him that there wasn’t enough evidence; and I must say I sort of shared her opinion on the matter, here are a few hotels, all belonging to the same slum lord, the hotels were inhabited by low-lifes, by destitute types, by welfare recipients, by out of date retirees, and then one day they all started to go up in smoke; many died, but the fire chief only cared about his six men, and it was unfortunate that old ladies and old men had also died, but they weren’t his men, just poor taxpayers that is all; and so he wanted to avenge his men’s death, and the cop that had refused to chase down the suspected arsonist, was sitting down, crying on the pavement, like a chicken with her head cut off, and so he took a manly approach. “Hate to tell you this ma’am, but I don’t think there is much left of your home, you must have left the gas stove on, an electrical spark, someone carelessly throwing a cigarette could have ignited the place, there was enough concentration of gas to plow the entire place and lucky we are that the neighbors didn’t get it too.” Chief takes his hat off scratches his white hairs. Lauren was no alien to those words, the fire chief was only repeating the words that she had used to nullify his concerns when she had obstinately refused to further investigate the fires as an insurance scam. She looked up at the fire chief like an angry leprous dog that doesn’t have the energy to attack, “Yes Chief, luckily the neighbors didn’t get it too.” Her eyes awash in tears heavily blended and welded with mascara; her hands touching the pavement, her beige dress, somewhat torn, her gold necklace, tarnished against her salty white blouse, her nylons suffering the end of their existence, the false sun extricating freckles across her aging face.
There was one nice thing about Lauren, she did not fight battles that weren’t worth her time and effort, she could have reacted with extreme anger, but she knew that the fire chief wasn’t going to react favorably, Lauren was aware that the cost of attempting to drill some sense into the chief was too exorbitant, she grabbed a hold of her shirt, blew concentrated snot out of her nostrils, and I might add, that was with considerable effort, and then she proceeded to walk over the ashes of her home but not righteously shoeless.
She kept on looking for Loki, silently here and there, a bone, a hair pile, a jaw, a tail, his collar which said “if you find me please call this number…” but nothing, there was nothing, and there was nothing else that she wanted to recover, not a family album, not a ring left by her grandmother, not a letter from some former lover, nothing, just Loki, and just Loki wasn’t anywhere.”
She rung up Habakkuk, he came over, he too walked over the place, then walked over to her kneeling self on the neighbors grass lawn. “No my Lauren, I am sorry, not a sign of Loki there, I did detect heavy concentrations of gas traces, cooking gas, it apparently caught fire and flamed the place down, Loki could not have felt any pain, he must have passed out from the gas before falling victim to the explosion, no one could have survived awake the concentration.” Lauren closed her eyes, gently opened them, “thank you Habakkuk, I understand.”
Habakkuk stood before her silently, and after a couple of quarters of an hour had passed, he gently touched her hair, caressed it and said, “Lauren, this was no accident, Antoinette was here.”
Today was Saturday, February 01, 2003
“Well Lauren,” Speaks the Captain, “we sure scraped the bottom with that one.” “Yes Captain,” The term captain as she is using it now, carelessly but firmly implies she is trying to keep her job, “mistakes were made, procedure wasn’t followed, I think it is possible to imagine that we pursued a case that had no motive, and that had far fetched witnesses and suspects.” Ogle, was not above being on top when the situation afforded him the pedestal, and more so when the opponent was a cocky woman that could outdo him at every turn, “A case that had no motive, Lauren! We didn’t even pursue a case Lauren, you’re sitting here acting like you’ve only made mistakes but you haven’t made any mistakes you have jumped off reality Lauren, you’re no longer here, and you’ve almost made me hop on your blood thirsty trail of a woman that doesn’t really have any fundamental flaws other than those that we couldn’t all go to jail for!”
Lauren of course, still believes that her attitude has been proper, that her boss is wholly wrongheaded, and that given enough time she will prove him and the system all wrong, she just needs more time, more time to investigate, more time to access files and witnesses, and eventually she will be vindicated. This is classic Lauren, for if Lauren had been, for instance, to dinner with Bacchus, she would have told the God of Food and Wine, that he was drinking and eating to much, that gluttony was an abomination and that he was bound to have a heart attack, closed arteries, high blood pressure, etc. And that would not even be the terrible part, she would not have told Bacchus, that she thought she was completely 100% correct, but rather would know it in her heart that through his heart failure, brain fart and mortal obesity, Lauren’s puritan self was convinced, that Bacchus would not only find out that she was correct, he would be so far busy proving her correctness through every illness known to excesses and hedonism, that eventually the post of God of wine and food would be eliminated by the universe and some angel would be made nutrition expert and life extensor. An oddity considering that Gods depend on people to die to worship them. And yet Lauren did not doubt this, the fact that she was killing a god did not much matter to her, she was right, that is all that mattered to her. So in keeping with that righteous attitude, Lauren continued her dialog with the captain, “Yes, you are right sir, it was sincerely awfully careless of me, I certainly learnt a lot these last few days, I am just sorry that I put you through this, and I am more sorry for myself;” she pauses, her head descending as if motioning grace, “Captain I still have so much to learn from you.”
Ogle wasn’t stupid, but he could believe in a compliment if it served him to keep one of his top detectives, which he needed to maintain a world class investigative team, so he walked over to Lauren, feeling a bit more powerful than he should have, “Hey kid, you just made a few bad choices, but you are on the right track, we are winners you and I, and we will continue to catch the bad guys, and beat the bureaucrats and make this the best precinct in all of these United States.” Lauren didn’t really care for all of the connotations that the captain had attached to all that, but she cared that the one that mattered was attached, she was still a detective, she could still wear a badge, carry a gun and have access to all the necessary research and documents to catch her triple abduction and murder criminal.
The captain was nice enough to oust Lauren out of the office, “Now take the day off, go on, you need a rest.” She did, smiling like a little girl that has been left off the hook for fucking the boy next door. She nears her house, an ambulance forces her to pull over so that it can pass by, a fire truck forces her to pull over to also pass her by, a cop car pulls her over, the officer recognizes the driver, “I think you better come with me ma’am.” Lauren, sensing that something is wrong and having complete faith in the arm of the law, parks her car and becomes a passenger with the nice patrolman that has picked her up. They reach the ambulances and fire trucks, her window is closed, it is drizzling slightly, the window remarks her lightly red natural lips, her medium eyes increasing with proximity, her house in flames.
I would like to say in flames, the house, with the parrots within, and with Loki, was completely up in smoke, there was hardly any wall standing, a remarkable explosion had taken hold of the place and had embarked on complete erasure, not a memory. Not that Lauren would have many memories, she was a child of the instant, whatever played the moment that is what she was playing, she did not lose anything here that could not be replaced at your local home depot; but for one thing, she slams into the ground off the side of the cop’s patrol car her eyes awash in tears, “Oh my Loki, oh my Loki I love you, where are you, please tell me that you are alright, Loki come back to me, Loki please forgive me, Loki, Loki,” the nice cop guy with the bad news tries to calm her, equally to respect her because her mountain of suffering also carries a badge that towers over his, “it’s ok Detective, it’s ok, everything is going to be ok.” “No it’s not, not it’s not going to be ok, where is my Loki cat, where is my Loki cat,…” Too difficult to tell what else she is saying.
The fireman’s Chief approaches, obviously notified that it was one of their own; firemen and policemen share a spiritual address, but the fire chief didn’t like Lauren, he knew of her, he hadn’t liked how she had handled some pyromaniac case a few years back, he held her responsible for all of his men that had died putting out those fires, six in total; she had told him that there wasn’t enough evidence; and I must say I sort of shared her opinion on the matter, here are a few hotels, all belonging to the same slum lord, the hotels were inhabited by low-lifes, by destitute types, by welfare recipients, by out of date retirees, and then one day they all started to go up in smoke; many died, but the fire chief only cared about his six men, and it was unfortunate that old ladies and old men had also died, but they weren’t his men, just poor taxpayers that is all; and so he wanted to avenge his men’s death, and the cop that had refused to chase down the suspected arsonist, was sitting down, crying on the pavement, like a chicken with her head cut off, and so he took a manly approach. “Hate to tell you this ma’am, but I don’t think there is much left of your home, you must have left the gas stove on, an electrical spark, someone carelessly throwing a cigarette could have ignited the place, there was enough concentration of gas to plow the entire place and lucky we are that the neighbors didn’t get it too.” Chief takes his hat off scratches his white hairs. Lauren was no alien to those words, the fire chief was only repeating the words that she had used to nullify his concerns when she had obstinately refused to further investigate the fires as an insurance scam. She looked up at the fire chief like an angry leprous dog that doesn’t have the energy to attack, “Yes Chief, luckily the neighbors didn’t get it too.” Her eyes awash in tears heavily blended and welded with mascara; her hands touching the pavement, her beige dress, somewhat torn, her gold necklace, tarnished against her salty white blouse, her nylons suffering the end of their existence, the false sun extricating freckles across her aging face.
There was one nice thing about Lauren, she did not fight battles that weren’t worth her time and effort, she could have reacted with extreme anger, but she knew that the fire chief wasn’t going to react favorably, Lauren was aware that the cost of attempting to drill some sense into the chief was too exorbitant, she grabbed a hold of her shirt, blew concentrated snot out of her nostrils, and I might add, that was with considerable effort, and then she proceeded to walk over the ashes of her home but not righteously shoeless.
She kept on looking for Loki, silently here and there, a bone, a hair pile, a jaw, a tail, his collar which said “if you find me please call this number…” but nothing, there was nothing, and there was nothing else that she wanted to recover, not a family album, not a ring left by her grandmother, not a letter from some former lover, nothing, just Loki, and just Loki wasn’t anywhere.”
She rung up Habakkuk, he came over, he too walked over the place, then walked over to her kneeling self on the neighbors grass lawn. “No my Lauren, I am sorry, not a sign of Loki there, I did detect heavy concentrations of gas traces, cooking gas, it apparently caught fire and flamed the place down, Loki could not have felt any pain, he must have passed out from the gas before falling victim to the explosion, no one could have survived awake the concentration.” Lauren closed her eyes, gently opened them, “thank you Habakkuk, I understand.”
Habakkuk stood before her silently, and after a couple of quarters of an hour had passed, he gently touched her hair, caressed it and said, “Lauren, this was no accident, Antoinette was here.”
Today was Saturday, February 01, 2003
posted by Ricardo Correa at 9:50 PM
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