It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 94: Chapter II

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

A murder!

Who doesn't like a good murder?

Who doesn't like a mystery with clues and shocks galore?

Who doesn't like the abounding questions as to the darkest and most natural rhymes and reasonings of humanity in all its gory gruesomeness?

Who doesn't like to ask of motive, opportunity, and means?

Who doesn't like puzzle over the ever tantalizing question of 'who did it?'

Alanna Mooney knew who!

Superintendent Terrance P. Walsh of the Boston Police Department's Homicide Unit. 

Superintendent Walsh had grown very weary of the question of 'who?', which usually was easy enough to solve, as long as his investigators were given ample enough time. But the 'who?' of the matter did not always mean a sure-fire conviction, and in the business of policing, especially in the beastly world of homicide, convictions are of the utmost importance. Sometimes even superseding fact. 'Who?' only gets you so far, but juries are often infernally fascinated with the significance of actions. Not juries by themselves, but specifically juries who have been hoodwinked by defense attorneys with their own set of pesky questions, almost all starting with 'why?'

'Why would my client have any reason to kill 'so-and-so'?'

'Because,' maintained Superintendent Walsh, 'your client is human, which means your client is a goddamn animal! What more do you need?'

A lot more apparently, judging by the rate of conviction in Mother-City, and the suits levied by supposed victims, claiming police persecution and brutality at every step. But such things could almost tolerated as a symptom of relatively democratic world. For Terrance P. Walsh, criminals calling foul were not the worst part of his job. Worst as a category was solely reserved for family members of victims, no saints themselves, who liked to stand in front of newsmen and their cameras, displaying framed photos of their loved ones clutched to their breasts. 'Why didn't the police do more?!' the would shrilly ask. 

'They love to rip us apart when it's not their ass in the fire,' the Superintendent liked to say. 'They like to tear us new ones if we step a toe over the line,  but God forbid they need us. Then they expect avenging angels!'

People, by Walsh's estimation, were never satisfied with anything.  In terms of policing, they wanted officers to be perfect and accurate, but also done with quickness and rapid efficiency that no organization of people had ever as of yet, in the whole of human history, accomplished. 'You get one or the other,' Superintendent Walsh would dearly have loved to scream at his many accusers. 'You choose and get back to me!' It was all very personal for the man, these constant attacks upon his noble profession, which were often, if not always, spurred on by the worst of worst of the worst mankind. Worst of the worst being an entirely different category than mere 'worst'.

'The fuckin' media!' he liked to shout at his underlings for no other reason than to curse the very existence of mass communication, and the people's unruly need to be informed. 'And activists too!' he would then add. 'All of them, Commie-fuckin'-bastards!' 

If the Superintendent had ever come up with a definitive list of his greatest tormentors, most likely activist would have actually topped the chart, but that is all academic. From his public statements, which are not to be confused with his Public Statements, given contritely for the cameras, the activists and the media were all in cahoots. Each and everyone of them a communist agitator sent to conspire against him and his city. Oh, how they liked to conjure issues up from thin air where none before existed. How they liked to complain that the police never did enough, while at the same time, bemoan the overzealousness and use of force—as if it were some epidemic!