Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/201/RUBYV25.ZIP/RUBY25-5

Text File | 1993-09-25 | 8KB | 136 lines

Copyright (c) 1993
                       NOTES FROM ALL OVER
                         By Rick Dawson

     Pedersen rubbed his eyes and looked down at the note on his
desk for what had to be the twentieth time since he got back to the
station. The lab boys had the original; the blood spatter wasn't
going to be of any real interest in this case, he was sure. The
medical examiner's assistant had summed it up pretty well this
morning on the dam after he'd examined the body, and Pedersen
doubted that Richmond was going to have anything more to add other
than official paperwork with the Commonwealth's seal across the
top.
     "No need to worry about DOA, this kid's DRT, Dan", Ellsworth
had said to him as the rescue squad bagged the remains. One of
the newer volunteers on the squad, a 20-year-old biology major at
the university up the road, overheard the remark and waited until
Pedersen was alone to ask him what it meant. "Dead right there,
kid, dead right there", Dan had answered, not bothering to look up
from his note-taking. He sensed, rather than saw, the kid's
reaction - the half-step back, the 'you callous bastard, that was
somebody with feelings, friends and family, and you guys crack
jokes about them!' glare in the eyes, the blaze of anger bright as
the strobe the lab techs used to take high-definition pictures of
the scene.
     Kid, if you only knew how little I care anymore, he thought
in retort.
     This had been an unusually heavy week for suicides. There was
the 82-year-old lady at the nursing home who'd saved her pills for
a couple weeks to make sure the dose was toxic. A 43-year-old
cigarette company middle manager who'd recently lost his job to
corporate restructuring only weeks after moving to Gill's Point was
next - the family had wanted to call it a murder, but the tentative
cuts on the wrist and neck, followed by the single thrust into the
heart said it all to Pedersen's trained eyes. He'd been followed
by the 28-year-old addict they found off of Dupuy, and now this
one this morning.
     All of them had left notes behind. The justifications and
rationalizations, the pleading for someone to understand that was
in vain, all of it landed on Pedersen's desk eventually. The
grandmother's note at least made some sense. Written in barely
legible script, it said "I'm not willing to try to cope with the
pain any longer. Tell Marcia and Jeff that Grandma loves them both,
but that she can't take the pain anymore, and I'll see them in
Heaven." The diagnosis had been confirmed by the family physician;
cancer had spread like wildfire through her system before it had
been detected, and at her age it didn't make sense to do much more
than make her comfortable with meds. Kevorkian would have done her
some good, but the right-to-lifers had jumped into playing God on
this issue too, he thought disgustedly. The cancer merchant's note
was full of regrets and recriminations: "I'm sorry it had to be
this way, but after losing the job, this seemed like the only way
to get the bills paid." was the sentence that stuck in Pedersen's
mind from that one. Christ, this guy's thinking about money instead
of people - you can sell a house and get another job!
     The addict's note was a confused, rambling affair. Penciled
on a sheet torn from one of those Gregg-ruled green pads, it had
skipped from subject to subject. A few things in there were being
investigated - the kid had written ". . .if there's a hell, I hope
that they send my dad there in pieces for what he did to me! If it
hadn't been for him, none of this would have happened." Since the
girl had been a local, and the family still lived in the area, this
one was being checked out - the girl had two other sisters who'd
left home underage and hadn't been found yet. You shoulda stuck
around, kid, he thought at the time. Some time in treatment, a
crackerjack lawyer and you could've been on TV with all the other
victims, whiners and weirdos. He had forwarded the note without
comment to CPS; maybe they would have some luck with the loose
ends.
     This morning's note bothered him in a way he hadn't been
able to pin down. The victim was a 38-year-old male caucasian. The
i.d. gave an address in the mid-section of town, and a cruiser had
verified it as the right residence. Neighbors, curious about what
the cops were doing in the neighborhood, had volunteered that the
victim indeed lived there. They were able to find out that he'd
been recently separated, and that the loss seemed to weigh heavily
on him. The kids were with the mother custody-wise, and in a local
day care. The history they had on the guy didn't make much sense:
a former addict and alcoholic, he'd evidently been off the sauce
for a few years and hadn't relapsed. There was a history of child
abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, but from all accounts that
wasn't playing out in his life currently - the neighbors spoke well
of him as a father and a husband.
     There was one thing, though . . . when the officers had talked
with the wife around 10:30 or so, she had said the reason they had
split up was his refusal to give up the computer. "It was another
addiction, and finally I gave him a choice of either it or us, and
he pointed towards the door. I figured a few weeks or so and maybe
he'd snap back to reality." It had taken the better part of an hour
to get that statement - she was highly distraught, and a counselor
from the mental health clinic had to be called.
     Pedersen sighed, rubbed his eyes again, put his glasses back
on and picked up the note.  I don't get it. Why would someone who'd
beaten the odds against making it this far in life kill himself
over a goddamned computer? Why couldn't he ditch the box, patch it
up with the old lady and get on with the business of living? The
photocopy didn't have any answers.

=================================================================

BBS: The Dead Zone BBS
Date: 09-07-XX                     Number: 12491
From: Clark Denton                 Refer #: None
   To: All                                 Recvd: No
Subj: Termination Notice               Conf: (16) Chit-Chat
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Just a short note to say goodbye.
Due to circumstances, I will be logging off permanently. A few
weeks back I made a serious error in judgement, and I cannot live
with the consequences of that decision. To those of you with whom
I'd struck up conversations, know that I'll miss you. I finally ran
into an addiction that I couldn't give up any other way than the
way I've chosen. In lieu of flowers, please turn off your modems
Saturday for the day and spend time with someone, not something.
                                    Clark
---
 SLMR 2.1a  Religious Error: [A]tone, [R]epent, or [F]ry?
* Dead Zone BBS*  Col. Hgts, VA * (804) 526 - 6471 14.4K
connections *
*CPRelay (tm) v2.06 DEADZONE (#733) : NetRelayer (tm)

     As he got up to leave, Pedersen picked up the note and tossed
it into the trash. There's something bizarre about sending a note
like this all over. What in hell could he have been thinking about?
Must be a nerd thing I wouldn't understand, he thought, as the
light blinked off and the door closed behind him. In the fading
light coming through the windows, a CRT glowed on the desk, the
cyan cursor gave up trying to blink in time to Pedersen's beta
waves, and the disk drive clicked dryly, hungrily. Not this time,
perhaps.
     Maybe it'll be a telecommunications program, or a game of
solitaire, but no matter; there is time.
                              END