Day 298 - Perfectly Executed. - Chapter 1.1 (1662 Words)

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PERFECTLY EXECUTED

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1.1

That was a year ago, one year ago today that he had come home to the news of what was undoubtedly the worst thing that would ever happen to him. The shock of it was a blur; the days melted and time became a fluid and oppressive notion. The aftermath of it was as tragic as the event itself.

The questions began immediately, and the police cast the suspicions at him, as did his neighbors and even the people he thought were his friends. It’s not a situation you come back from easily, that kind of accusation and suspicion, it drags at you even when it’s untrue. The weight of it is like gravity turned up, you can’t get out from under it. You beg for mercy and for the unfair pressure to relent and give you some leeway.

There was none to be had.

The sympathy came instantly, but it was guarded and conditional, never spoken of out loud, not in his presence, but whispered in abstentia. The people, like all people regardless of status and relationship, had their own grief and processing to deal with. In absence of the explanation, of which there was none at first, then the mind and the soul seeks to fill the void and they go to the most logical place they can think of.

It had to be him, it had to be someone who knew when and where and how. It made no sense to be anyone or anything else. That was where he could not argue; he could not defend other than helplessly proclaiming innocence. That became his life for a while; he was the man who did not do it, not the poor victim of a tragically insane act. He was the man who denied it, when there was no perpetrator to be found.

This was something that rattled inside of him, the OJ Simpson’s, the Arthur Allan Thomas’s and the Hurricane Carter’s of the world were his shipmates. Guilt or innocence made little difference to those on board with him, alive or dead. Once suspicion is raised then you are seen differently. It was an impossible scenario, it was an insane act and no one had any motive except being proximal to the likelihood or being guilty. He had no reason to commit the acts that had ripped his life into pieces, he had no suspects to point to and no one else could possibly have had a motive.

That left him in the spotlight, alone and afraid, pointed and whispered about, openly accused by allegations rather than statements. There was nowhere to hide; hiding was something the guilty did. There was nowhere to run, which also would have been an admission. He mourned and grieved and went a little off the rails, which made no proof of innocence and no seal of guilt.

Then he was not alone, and the poor unfortunates that were next in line were taken in the same way with the same method and it was very definitively not he. He was not cleared, not immediately because of course it could have been an affirmation of his innocence set up to look that way, whatever the cost. Conspiracy abounded, and the fingers still pointed at him, no evidence ever satisfied the mind already decided.

He was not alone and this time the accusations did not fly at the other people peripheral to the situation, because they were alibied and cleared before the press had lighted on the details, the father had been overseas. It was impossible and he had no connection to Dr Edward Thompson, who had lost his own in the same way with little to free him from suspicion.

He was helping the police with the investigation, so the press said and of course that put him back under suspicion, as if the meaning of the sentence was somehow an accusation itself. In reality he had never stopped ‘helping’ the investigation, he had called every day and read the news, called in private resources and did as much as he humanly could, but that was detail unfettered by the editorial command of the press.

The second time was the one that mattered and the man was caught with everything that was needed to catch, charge and incarcerate the man. The whole procedure was sped up to a ludicrous rate of achievement. He plead guilty, he freely admitted the murders, the gruesome and visceral details of the crime that only the police and the killer would know.

He kept diaries, he kept souvenirs and the weapons used in his house, proudly and unhidden. He wanted to be caught, he wanted to speak and he wanted people to know what he did had a reason.

The reason of course what he was mad, insane beyond any definition that could have been leveled at any human being. The need that burned within him was unreasonable and illogical, and the more that he tried to explain it the worse he got. The guilt and the evidence to back it up were overwhelming and undeniable, and the man would live forever behind padded walls. His sentence was unopposed by any, even his lawyers could see the man’s best interest was in never being free again.

He would live, where five souls had been snuffed out and would get no chance at anything. The bereft were still there and they too had the pain left by the hole this man had punched so magically in their lives. The second husband, the one who had been overseas, he was the victim and the focal point of the sympathetic ear of the country.

People still looked at Dr Edward sideways, thinking for as long as they did that he was somehow involved left a taint and spin on their perception.

Dr Edward Thompson had been killed twice over by this man, his wife and two children were the first blows, and surviving as the prime suspect was the second. There was undeniable proof, but the glances, the whispers and the opinions formed in the crucible of suspicion were indelible. Scrubbing would still leave traces, marks and scars that no plastics surgeon could ever hope to heal.

The hardest part was seeing the man in court, pleading guiltily and gleefully accepting the details, presenting his version of events as evidence, spouting a murderous and profane agenda as his own personal propaganda. He was still shouting his new religion of cleansing as the bailiffs cleared the court and took him out of sight forever.

That was when Dr Thompson knew what he had done, when he had done it and why it was him.

He recognized the man finally, and then he knew why.

The bottom fell out of his world once more, reality shifted again like the day he came home to find the police censoring his living room and showing him the dregs of the crime before confronting him with the full horror.

The press made a meal of his fainting, his collapsing into the arms of his police escort, holding him from hitting the floor of the courtroom. Overdramatic, too little too late, and histrionic; he was labeled and shamed with his reaction, which was as out of his control as the event in the first instance.

He knew the man, not intimately but he made the connection in his insane ravings from the dock, the shouting and the ludicrous words spat with flecks of rage and fear in the air. This was a man he had dismissed with a wave, one he forgot as easily as a day of rain in the summer. It was a distressing and ugly event, but the peace and sunshine on either side of it colour his memory in sunlight, not madness.

He could have avoided it, easily maybe not, but it was possible.

Edward did not know how he got home, the police must have taken him ad helped him inside, but he was there now and looking about the room and seeing it a new, with his own tears painting the walls where the blood had once covered everything.

He was wounded, scarred and mutilated by fate and his own indifference to an insane street corner preacher. A casual flick of a finger as the man had accosted him verbally and assaulted him logically, and that sealed his fate.

It was not his fault, he knew that, there was no excuse for insanity but the wounded soul that had been cut so hard and deep was only salted by the knowledge that he had in his intolerance to he connection, turned this all on.

The knowledge burned in his flesh and the wound simmered and bubbled with it.

Had he seen him on the street? Had he been hiding and watching or was it more brazen and daring, wanting to be caught and confronted? That was the thing, when he was taken and the second family was targeted, the husband had flown out that previous day, and encountered Samuel at the airport, before security removed him from the premises.

He had bothered the travellers, and they had no idea of the death he held waiting in his hands, he was politely and firmly escorted away. Too late, he had his lesson ready and he knew what his god wanted of him.

A god of his own making, a god of his own belief, a god that would accept whatever sacrifices needed to be made, and a god that allowed the wounded to find redemption and heal with time.

That had been the one statement he made to Edward.

‘Time heals all wounded, and god has nothing but time.” His eyes burned with zeal in his preaching, drilling as deep as he could, his message madly dripping the hole he bored.

“God is not the only one with time.”  He finally answered the madness, alone on his couch sitting in his living room.