You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Job.
I’m at the crime tape.
It’s a warm November day. The sun is shining and the neighbors pausing long enough to gander at the spectacle staining their street.
The Medical Examiner’s van arrives. It is a dark SUV, ominous, foreboding. It has a Metro seals on the door. The windows are tinted black. Though a city vehicle, it somehow feels evil.
3 women exit the SUV. They are dressed in black military style uniforms. They have high laced boots and back packs. They get out.
They approach the crime tape wondering who is in charge.
A heavy set man with silver hair and tight fitting shirt approaches.
I recognize him. He is a long time detective. He use to head up the armed robbery division.
These guys were bad asses.
They went after the city’s most notorious armed robbery suspects. The liquor store robbers, the bandits who held up citizens at the mall. The scum of the Earth. That’s who these cops went after, squashing evil like cock roaches under a stiletto hee.
The long time detective advises the trio of medical examiners.
The conversation is lively, accentuated by arm movements and wild gestures.
The heavy set detective motions the trio to the woods. The sgt on scene raises the crime tape and the women duck underneath.
The militaristic medical examiners proceed forward. They stop for a moment. They stare at the arch made of leaves and small limbs.
Beyond the arch, I see a muddy path that slopes down into the bowels of dark, foreboding forest
I watch the medical examiners carefully duck under the forest arch and disappear into the canopy of black.
The detective turns to me.
I have known this detective for almost 20 years.
He nods.
“Remains?” I say alluding to the arch.
“Yup,” he says in his best southern cop.
20 years and he still won’t give anything away.
“Foul Play?”
“That’s why they’re here,” he says referring to the medical examiners.
“We have some ideas, but till we prove it, doesn’t mean much,” he adds.
The body was discovered the night before. The bones have been scattered by animals.
There is reportedly some id’s near the bones.
Police think the bones may belong to a woman who was reported missing last year.
But nothing can be finalized till the medical examiner finishes his autopsy.
This will be an all day investigation. I will watch police recruits go through the forest arch.
Hours pass, the autumn sun is low in the sky. School busses begin rolling down the street, past the crime tape, bringing children home.
There is movement, and I feel my adrenaline buzz.
Suddenly the dark arch is filled with medical examiners moving into the clearing.
I see a bright white body bag, partially filled carried through the cathedral like arch and into the back of the ominous SUV.
I see red bio hazard bags come out of the darkness.
The medical examiners talk to the cops on scene and then say goodbye.
The yellow tape is raised and the van drives down the street.
Neibghbors will stop by the crime tape and ask about the bones, the dead body.
I smile. I don’t know much.
I know enough.
The woman was reportedly suicidal and then mysteriously disappeared.
Did she come to this forest cathederal and take her life?
Was she murdered?
Is the bag of bones even her?
We won’t know till the medical examiner runs his tests.
I watch the old detective come out of the woods. He walks to the back of the squad car and flips open a box of pizza.
He grabs a slice and takes a bite.
I laugh.
The exhaust from the medical examiner’s SUV has barely cleared. The visual of the bag of bones coming out of the woods is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Bio hazard bags and crime tape and the spectre of something horrible that happened in the woods is all around us.
I walk up to the cop as he swallows.
“Most people don’t get what we do, huh?”
“Nope. It’s a job,” he says taking another bite of pizza
“It’s just a job like any other,” he adds.
“yep. I guess.” I say.
“Well. Gotta go,” he says. “nice seeing you again.”
“Yep. Till the next dead body,” I say laughing.
I have a live shot to do.
I wave to the old cop as he gets in his car.
He waves back, pizza in hand.
“Just a job,” I say under my breath. “Just a job.”
Life’s Crazy™