Not a flash, not a friday, a note to next weeks, years, decades haredawg in unfinished fiction in Flash Friday

This isn’t a flash. It’s a rough draft of an idea. I’m not even sure I like the narrator or his character. I think, however, there’s a short story in here somewhere with the idea. If I revisit it, I mean if tomorrow or next week or next year the idea still seems compelling, I’ll think about a better way of presenting it and bringing to fruition. The tricky part is not making it sound trite, not coming to a surprise, or a tidy package or an unfolding or just something morose.

If the idea was gelled enough I wouldn’t need the intor, and it’s for me, not you. I do have a profound statement, in my head there is a perspective worth pursuing; on the page this --- this is not it. It’s more of a plot outline and a character outline and I don’t like the character. I don’t mean I wouldn’t have a beer with him, I mean he’s not the character for the story. It might not even be best to be in first person.

I’m using the box here the way I used OD, as a public storage locker without a lock. A locker for very rough drafts. Not even running this through spell check, when I decide to read it I want it the way it came off my fingers, there might be a glimmer there of what I was looking for.

I see a lot of suicides as a homicide D. The family or neighbors or whoever finds the body is always going to think foul play. It’d be suspicious if they didn’t. And no, the department doesn’t give a fuck what they think, ever, but the department want’s it’s public relations too. The PPD is as hated as forces three times it’s size.

There’s a sort of profile goes with a suicide. Maybe there’s a real profile, I don’t know. We don’t do all that shit you see on TV, most cops don’t. I mean the CSI shit, we don’t have our own lab, we don’t have profilers, and sure, in a homicide we will dust for prints and take poloroids of the crime scene, even bag fiber and DNA if we fall across it. Unless it goes to trial it sits in evidence, goes to trial the DA might send stuff to the lab in Seattle. But, even the DA, if he goes to forensics for reasonable doubt knows his case has troubles.

Narcissism, that’s usually a big part of the suicide profile. The corpse alone is a statement, the note, shit, even the most eloquent is just some version of the high school kid who just broke up, lost the game, got a D on a final. The whole world sucks because it’s not treating them right and the payback is not having the blessing of them in it anymore.

Karen Scott-Leeds didn’t just leave a note. She left a portfolio. 1 suicide painting, 1 suicide essay, 1 suicide poem, 1 snarky will (e.g. My mail goes to the bitch in 4A, she opens it anyhow) and, believe it or not, a suicide mix tape. Coroners report (yes, we do have a ME) --- Toxic levels of Benzo’s, opiates and something I can’t pronounce. At the scene it looked like just a self inflicted GSW to the temple. Oh and the gas was on with the pilot off. Wasn’t just a suicide, she was going for Karen Scott-Leeds genocide, making sure.

The painting was disturbing; A sharpie with her face humping a human skull. Not a very good painting and the face was just a cutout from a photo. Reminded me again of a broken hearted teenager. Karen Scott-Leeds was 37, happily divorced, employed with an accounting firm, office manager. She paid her bills on time, her rent on time, had a 401k with an employer match, lived within her means. Canvassing the neighbors was classic urban grunt work, they knew her by site, one guy said he helped her with her groceries once, one woman said they had coffee together a few times, both were adamant about no boyfriend and then backed up to “… that I’m aware of”.