This was a tough assignment. Thanks for the challenge, Zach. I wanted to write a fictional story, but I just wasn’t up to it, so I wrote this instead. I’ll be in Vegas for the next week and won’t be posting. I’ll check in next weekend, either on this site or the new one. Can’t wait to read everyone else’s stuff.
Crime Fighter
By Jessica Baldwin
“In the Criminal Justice System the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”
This phrase echoed through my house and called me into action. It told me to stop writing, put down the laundry, ignore prior commitments and help my friends solve yet another crime. Before Law and Order, which first aired in 1990, I spent my Sunday evenings hunting down killers with Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote. Anywhere the poor woman went, death was on her heels. She was a grandmotherly grim-reaper in a smart pant suit. But she always found the killer and served justice, usually alongside a helping of moral advice. I adored her.
I became just as fond of my colleagues at One Police Plaza and in the New York District Attorney’s office. Though grittier than Ms. Fletcher, the Law and Order detectives were equally successful at tracking down killers in the span of an hour. With so many seasons, and so many versions of the show, I could almost always find an episode and check in with their current case. If I’d seen it before, I could be especially helpful, yelling at the television, “the brother did it, don’t waste your time with the girlfriend.” Sometimes I came to this conclusion as early as seven seconds into the show (yes, I’ve timed it). If I hadn’t seen the episode, though, I had to rely on more than my expert recall. This is when I offered them my well-honed instincts and my keen perceptions. I’d kindly warn the detectives to “check out the mother again, she’s too cooperative,” or suggest they “lay off the street thug, he’s not your real criminal.”
After Lenny, er Jerry Orbach, the actor who played Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, left the show and died shortly after, I got choked up every time I watched it. We’d developed such a bond over the last decade, and I missed his wisecracks about his ex-wife and his yuppy partners. The streets of New York were tough without him, so I turned my attention elsewhere. This is when I began my interest in true crime shows. Better to watch true stories about death and mayhem involving people I don’t know, I figured. And soon I began uncovering Suburban Secrets, reading Forensic Files, and closing Cold Case Files. These programs, known in my house as my Mysteries, have given me an advanced education in crime solving. Now I can be heard declaring to the officers on the show, whether real or re-enactors, “spray the ex’s trailer with Luminal, I’m sure you’ll find blood,” or “I guarantee once the neighbor’s fingerprints go to the lab, the mass spectrometer will reveal a match to the killer’s.”
At a recent dinner with colleagues from work (my day job, as a teacher), a co-worker related her experience with a former boss who sexually harassed her. He was creepy and controlling and made her life intolerable. She told us how she’d gone so far as to concoct a plan to kill him. She was going to invite him to the shooting range and “accidentally” shoot him at close range. “It would’ve been fool-proof,” she claimed.
The table went silent. I was in shock. This was a very intelligent woman, but what she was telling us was preposterous. Fool-proof? Not unless the angle of trajectory was calculated very carefully beforehand. If not, it would raise suspicion. Forensic scientists would re-stage the crime scene and discover her account of the shooting didn’t match up with the evidence. Then they would uncover the boss’s mistreatment of her and establish her motive. It would be over for her at that point. Quite foolish, really. Fortunately for her, she changed jobs instead of attempting such an amateur crime.
Another woman I work with found her soon-to-be-ex-husband lying at the bottom of the stairs. He’d fallen and was unconscious when she discovered him. If she’d come back to work instead of going to the Intensive Care Unit with her fallen husband, I’d have advised her, “get a lawyer, and do not say anything to the police.”
I like this woman, and I don’t really think she would try to murder her husband, but true crime shows have taught me nothing if not to suspect the spouse, even in an “accident.” I wanted her to know her rights before she was coerced into a confession for a crime she didn’t commit. In fictional crime shows, the spouse isn’t usually the culprit, as that would be cliche and predictable. In true crime dramas, however, the spouse is nearly always involved. Add the impending threat of a divorce and you’re almost certainly looking at a domestic situation.
And the ol’ staircase routine has been done many times. Forensic science can recreate the fall with chilling accuracy. Evidence can show if he fell or was pushed. Evidence that my poor co-worker won’t be able to dispute. I wonder if she’s prepared for all of this. Then I realize he didn’t die and she was at work at the time of the fall, so it probably won’t matter. Still, perhaps I should share some of my insights with her, just in case. Dear God I hope she didn’t recently raise the payout on his life insurance policy listing her as the beneficiary.
While canoeing with my fiancé this weekend, we encountered a small, overgrown cove branching off the river. He asked if I wanted to venture into it. The scene reminded me of a recent episode of Investigators, in which one spouse set up the other to be killed by luring them into a secluded park. I replied, “Why, do you have grand plans for a “romantic rendevous” back there?” “Oh, they’re grand, alright,” he said with a smirk, “fifty grand.”
I laughed, as did he. Then I began to realize how morbid we’ve become. Is this what too much “reality” television does to a person? I wanted to give a co-worker tips on committing a fool-proof crime, and I suspected an innocent and distressed coworker of murder. Now I’m joking about offing my fiance before he can do it to me. Ha ha. We’re not even married and we’re making plans for each other’s demise. How romantic.
The true crime shows have provided me a window into the demented psyches of real killers and into the cunning minds of real detectives. And what has become of my own mind? I’m thinking like the criminal, which I know is an asset as a detective, but which I suspect is not altogether healthy for me. Jessica Fletcher never talked, even jokingly, about “offing” anyone. And Lenny Briscoe, despite the cruelties he witnessed, managed to stay on the right side of the law. Ah, Jessica and Lenny, my old friends. I’ve missed them. I’ve missed their charms and their ability to wrap up crimes before I could finish a bag of popcorn. I was always on their side, never that of the bad guys. They made crime-fighting quick and easy, the way I prefer it. I suspect I should meet up with them again, and go back to helping them with their fictional cases. Otherwise, I may end up using my years of experience for evil instead of good. I may end up the subject of the next episode of Investigators.
jessica,
fist off, this is gonna be a long one–i’m gonna get on a soap box. apologies in advance, and hope you’re up for the read.
first off, this is a well written essay. you have a nice feel for what you’re trying to do here, and if you refine it out a little bit more, you’d have something really very good. a nice mix of nostalgic and contemporary elements along with a nice, somewhat facetious yet sentimental backbone without getting sarcastic or melodramatic–which is a tough thing to do. well done.
however, what i found a bit curious was your contention before the piece that “i just wasn’t up to” writing fiction. i’d like to know why, what are the issues you ran into?
(curtain draws to reveal soapbox, narrator steps atop)
you see, the thing about fiction–to me at least–is that it should be a far easier medium with which to write. after all, when you don’t have to restrict yourself to reality–or what actually happened, or what you actually feel, or what someone else was or wasn’t actually thinking–all you’re doing is leaving yourself more options. when you write non-fiction, you have only one option–you have to say what actually happened, you have to say what you actually felt, and it doesn’t matter what someone else was thinking because you can’t possibly know for sure because you aren’t inside their head. so you can’t even properly write what anyone anyone aside from yourself was thinking–not if you want to keep it a work of non-fiction that is. (i’d even go a step further and argue that you can’t even properly say what YOU were thinking if you want to keep it non-fiction because, after all, the mind is far more complex than to have but a single thought at a single moment, and almost universally, one thought is inextricably linked to every other one at that same moment)
really, as i see it, there’s only one difference between fiction and non-: in non-fiction you have to be perfectly honest even when it would be more interesting to lie.
i guess that’s why i’m not sure i understand why people choose to write non-fiction when they have the option. i think sometimes people think they can’t write fiction because they don’t believe themselves creative enough or they don’t think they can write something original enough–not that either of these is necessarily the case with you (like i said, i’m not sure what it is and i’m curious to find out). the truth is–and i’m sure almost any competent writer or reader of fiction would agree–good fiction is only good because it is believably non-fiction: there’s a truth-value to it that, even when it’s clear the story is contrived or fantastic or metaphysic or a fairy tale, on the surface, the reader doesn’t care because he or she buys into the world the author presents to them.
and what’s the easiest world to buy into if it’s not the one we all live in?
some of the best stuff fiction writers write is barely discernible from the non-fiction of their lives. and that’s why it’s their best, because it’s the stuff they really know (see: vonnegut, see: mccarthy, see: greene, see: woolfe, etc., etc., etc.).
fiction isn’t about making things up; it’s about making things that really happen more interesting than they really are.
…which is all just a roundabout way to say that if you can write lucid, interesting non-fiction–which you clearly can–that’s much more of a feat than writing lucid, interesting fiction, because, after all, what you’ve done is write under the handicap of reality.
if you want to write fiction, all you need to do is find the parts of you’re non-fiction writing where you wish something else would have happened and write it to happen exactly as you wish.
(curtain drops, narrator steps forward to take a bow)
cheers, write on, and good luck.
This is a great essay. Although I was always more interested in the second half hour of Law and Order, when the lawyers took over, especially if it was that hawt lady lawyer or at least Sam Waterston, who would be pretty high-up on my list if I ever turned gay.
I don’t really know what to suggest for improvement. I suppose you could consider talking a little less about Ms. Fletcher and focusing a little more on Law and Order. I suppose you could try and divide up the sections of the essay with little headings like one sees between the scenes of Law and Order.
Anyway, I’m really glad you are going to write for the group. We are all doing pretty good and I really enjoy reading the works.