The Akashic Record Takes Part in a Murder

Sunday mass was happening, Lauren felt the need to bring Habakkuk with her, he wasn’t too pleased by the ordeal. “Why do I need to be there, I am a post transcendentalist, beyond the metaphysical, the church is for energies that have evolved past mythology but haven’t gotten past fiction.” “Look Mr Habakkuk you’ve gotten me in trouble in the past with all your mind bending rules and beyond anthropomorphic knowledge, besides how am I going to interpret anything without you there, tell me how!” Finally Habakkuk agreed to go but only if Lauren and Antoinette consented to making tortillas with him. He said “its easy, all you do is just add water and a little bit of oil, and then flour, and then you just mix, and mix adding air with your hands and then you roll them out and fry, ta ta.” So that is what they did on Saturday, make tortillas, the tortillas didn’t look like tortillas, and both Lauren and Antoinette were in agreement that adding air to the masa is not as easy as Habakkuk made it sound. To which he responded, “And I like going to church?” There was no reply.

Sunday mass was rather well attended, a huge crowd of what was obviously a well to do bunch. There must have been lots of lawyers, many ties were the common indicator, doctors, maybe even scientists, but certainly the archbishop had amassed a healthy segment of worshipers, not a truck driver or an inventory control clerk among them. Both Habakkuk and Lauren arrived early enough so as to review everyone as they entered; they both sat in an area that apparently was reserved for additional musical instruments should for some reason the choir not suffice. Lauren had felt sufficiently confident that their regal sitting position was justified by the authority invested in her by the state. She was apparently unaware that such pretenses of authority were nullified in the house of the lord, and so her belief gave her a false sense of control.

The well-heeled started entering the church on the early side about a half an hour before the mass. Mostly old women who went up to the altar, inaudibly speaking to the lord but moving their lips as if he could read them. Christ was hanging on the cross, nailed to it, blood running throughout his body, at one side there was a seemingly complacent virgin Mary, having a face that seemed to have never had a hard life or been bestowed upon the tragedy of her son’s crucifixion. Certainly she did not look the part of a carpenters wife, but then neither did any other woman in this church.

Young altar boys were moving around preparing incense and filling up the holy water receptacles. A lonely young woman, dressed in black pants, white blouse and holding a rosary, wept by the side of an angel, her hands might have been trembling, she promptly left leaving us without her story.

A couple of older men walked in, more as if they owned the place, they paced around, as if the church were a waiting area in a train station; their hands in their pockets, always seeming not far from pulling out a cigarette and using a holy candle to light it, but fortunately they didn’t, or so thought Lauren, who then noticed that Habakkuk was practically asleep. She immediately elbowed him, without realizing her own unwitting contamination by the church’s values.

Closer to the top of the hour the choir arrived, a rousing cacophony of noises in a preparation that was to find its contrary later; they robed, sounding notes here and there, telling an occasional joke, for there was laughter and what else could have produced it, they all looked like Mormons, but they were Catholics, their leader was a big woman, in her late fifties for sure, she didn’t seem very spiritual, stern, maybe in another life a factious leader of some communist obsession, here, in this setting, she had become a choir leader, a mentor, and organizer, and you could tell a great baker at home. She ruled the group to a fast order and silence, and they all, far too many to bother counting, lined up properly facing her and preparing their musical chords.

Habakkuk was trying to astroplane but he was a bit out of practice so he sort of had to stay there, and Lauren kept on reminding him that he was grounded. Occasionally he thought things like, “how much cilantro is too much? Do beans last longer if you don’t add garlic and onions? Do I lose a lot of flavor if I don’t add the ingredients to the beans? Can I freeze burritos overnight? Is it pointless to try to perfect the art of finding the perfect avocado?” and Occasionally he would economically ponder, “I don’t belong here, what am I doing here with this cop lady?” when Lauren, disturbed by his thoughts, would say, “quiet pay attention.” And he realized that the mass had started.

The proceedings were magnificently boring, Father Trocin was giving the mass, he accused everyone of being sinners, “you are all sinners,” then perhaps sensing that culpability ought to be shared, “we are all sinners,” and he followed with this very long and tedious sermon on why the Song of Solomon was not in the new testament; which perhaps no one but Habakkuk understood as he was on the verge of laughing aloud many times, and one time practically blew himself up just from trying to contain himself. Finally Trocin finished off, “…and it is the wisdom of the ages that edits our lives and calls upon us to live them in the ways which have been deigned by centuries of discovery and repetition, to be proper. And proper in the eyes of god! Not proper in our eyes! Not proper in the eyes of the local constabulary! Proper in the eyes of the old mighty, for only he is lord, only he is king, and only he is god, and only he represents salvation for us all!”

Whew, Lauren and Habakkuk certainly took notice, and didn’t really know if he had just told them that he wasn’t guilty of anything by their judgment, or if he had just told the congregation not to cooperate with the authorities.

“My flock, I leave you to the eyes of god, go with him.” There was a pause, “amen.”

The flock was just getting ready to flock when he changed his tone to something more constructive, “My fellow children of god, it is a tragedy that recently Father Timothy Wellington left us without his warmth and heart; but it is god’s doing which we shall not dare to question as only the lord knows the ways of the lord. Today however, as is often the case that we must collaborate with Cesar because god does not want us to deny Cesar what is his, today we have among us members of the police department, that will want to ask you some questions before you leave, please in the name of our father, collaborate with them, even as we want our archbishop to rest, we shall serve Cesar well.”

The congregation wasn’t amused, at all. In fact they were some what vocal in their dismay, and perhaps, since they were people that ticked their lives via a calendar, felt intruded upon. But Lauren had anticipated all that, she walked up to the podium and asked everyone to be calm and assured them that this would not take long. At which point cops appeared at every entrance thus helping her to enunciate.

The interviews went on for approximately two hours, then the interviewing task force got together and Lt Moro, a tall football type, responding to Lauren’s question if they had gotten anything, “Gotten what Detective, gotten what? What were we looking for? A murderer’s confession? You know in this business no one readily surrenders, even if they just attended a mass, and from the looks of this crowd no one here needs any charity from god.” He then cleared his sinuses as the rest of the officers added a sense of relief that someone had uttered their sentiments.

“Hold on everyone, I know this is a little unorthodox but when we don’t have anything else to go by what else can we do, we have to keep on trying.” Upon saying that she looked at Habakkuk who was not at that moment about displaying a sense of shame and guilt, which did not serve to fortify Lauren’s position. Fortunately the voice of reason and down to earth police work stepped into the crowd, “Ok, ok lets stop whining, everyone, surely we all have better things to do on a Sunday, so lets huddle now, review results, and then we can all go home.” Captain Ogle.

Lauren again in possession of the ball and the game plan if any, “Yes sir good to see you!” she did a snappy salute and then begun to command, “Here is how we are going to do this, we have six interview teams, each team is to give their interview notes to a different team, and they will review them, then will again exchange them with different interview teams for further evaluation, and finally we will brainstorm them together. Go!”

The teams were meeting in the garden outside the church, Habakkuk wasn’t made to read anything, nor did he want to, he was just there to listen, so while the groups were sharing their notes he was forced to go get drinks for everyone. Unfortunately after that fall on the ice in New York city he hated coke, for some strange reason he held coke responsible, and never bought coke again; so he brought back healthy drinks like pineapple sunburst, kiwi-mandarin surprise, and chocolate-dynamic with ten times the caffeine of a sack of coffee beans. Needless to say, this merely reaffirmed what they all already suspected, he was a freak and a weirdo.

Curious, Father Trocin stopped by where Lauren was sitting on the grass reading notes, when she looked up he was standing just in such a way that the sun was a halo on his head, she made futile attempts to cover her eyes, he did not bother to alter his position, but rather as if speaking for the Sun, “Did you enjoy my service?” “Yes Father it was… passionate, and inspirational.” “Well, may I be of service to you here?” “No thank you Father, you have done enough.” And with that the Sun and Father Trocin left.

Another hour or so later the teams had finished their sharing of notes and they sat in a circle with Captain Ogle and Lauren in the center, and the weirdo somewhere to the side, well outside the circle.

The feedback started from different groups, “no one liked this priest.” “he offended a little girl by telling her that her sins were not forgivable by god’s own standards and recommended she settle for purgatory.” “a couple of guys noted that they did not understand why he was serving god if he hated people.” “an old lady asked me to check to make sure if he was really dead but it was the way she said it, “you better check if he is really dead, he wasn’t alive in the first place you know.”” “I had two businessmen that said they would want him to negotiate their next contracts.” “Hey that is nothing, a very wealthy man said, “this church isn’t the richest church in the world for lack of talent.” “Yeah! Shit, it sounds like this guy was really hated by his parishioners.” “Well but being hated does not mean that someone is going to kill you or that you are going to inspire that in someone.” “Personally if you ask me, I think we got nothing here.”

Habakkuk, interjected, “Are you sure about that Officer?” Lauren and Ogle looked at each other. Habakkuk walked himself within the circle, one hand in his pocket and the other helping him with the conversation. “I see a mass murder here, I see that people have willingly amassed within this congregation, held such opinions of the archbishop in common with one another, that they may have unwittingly brought upon the energies that would consume him. (continuing with his gestures) neither he nor any one parishioner could have been excluded from the plot or aware of it, intensifying within the calculations of a servant of the lord’s ill will towards those he was to guard and foster, was a self deprecating plot by no doubt a very intelligent archbishop, that had it in him to guide his flock into a mass murder plot which would surely resonate through the ages. As the antagonism against him grew, antagonism which he must have preached in his sermons, the man rippled, stroked the wall of condemnation against himself, to perhaps demonstrate forces unknown to us, to himself, and equally to prove how damming it all is. There are no innocents in those notes. Not even the little girl is safe from having added to the harm done.”

The Officers were all dumbfounded, they didn’t understand one word that this man had said, they were sure he was a lunatic, they looked at Lauren, a few threw up their hands and exclaimed that they were going home, others waited to be appropriately dismissed which captain Ogle promptly obliged; and then he turned to Lauren, “Shit Lauren, shit, shit, shit!” he got up from where he had been seating, put his coat on, “I am gonna leave you two alone to contemplate what you are saying, please Lauren, this guy is not even in the payroll, we are liable for the things we say, we are not voodoo surveyors of the murder prone, oh fuck it. I will see you tomorrow.”

Ogle knew that regardless of her unconventional approach Lauren was his best detective, he had to put up with a lot, but result after result had shown the girl had what it took. He would swear here and there, and talk badly of her methodology behind her back, but he always knew that the weird shit always lasted only so long and always gave him what he needed to keep bringing in results. Some times though, he just thought it would never stop.

Lauren however was not at all thinking about the other Officers nor had she much heard what captain Ogle had said, she had heard everything Habakkuk had said, she was digesting it, she knew it was out there, deep into the sojourn of eternal life, but something made sense here, something which she needed to absorb. She got up and took her friend’s hand, “have I told you that I like your brown striped pants?” “No you haven’t.” laughing “that’s right I haven’t.” they walked towards her car, got in it, closed the door and felt that no one not even the universe could hear them now, they were inside of the water proof ford mustang, and if water couldn’t get in much less the universe that was way out there.

Lauren spoke first,

“You’re saying that these people all thought so poorly of Timothy that indirectly they wished him ill, the Akashic got the information, echoed it through the congregation, which only reaffirmed it and thus caused him to die of natural causes.” Habakkuk joined his hands somewhat happily, “precisely.” Lauren bobbing her head up and down and touching the steering wheel, “yes, that is what happened, it makes perfect sense, only that isn’t a crime, or at least it is not a crime yet, or there isn’t any way that I can pin that on the flock because they all just killed a little itty bit of the archbishop each, until finally they did him in.” Habakkuk interjected, “There was one that had to be the murderer, the one that took the last bit of the archbishops energy, all of them drained him, but only one could have thrown him over the top, they all contributed, but only one had to take the final step. In fact this is precisely what happens in an obvious murder, that the person who does the killing can’t take that person any more and loses all civility. But others generally want him dead too. I told you this before Lauren, it is the most sensitive people that carry out the crime as they are more prone to the tune being played by the Akashic record.” He pauses from his unaware excitement, “no one within the vicinity of an action is excluded from the action. The hardest thing to do in the universe is to disconnect from everything else.

“If you are correct then the little girl would certainly be a prime suspect. She being more susceptible than the adults.” “I think it so.” Hesitant perhaps remembering another little girl and perhaps wondering if this was her, then he continued, “the more susceptible would be the most tainted, sadly this implies their guilt and not their susceptibility which would be more accurate.”

Lauren took a deep breath, she didn’t doubt any of this, she knew it was right. She turned the car on, and drove Habakkuk home, not another word was spoken between them, even the “see you later.” Was muffled.

On her way home, she stopped at a candy specialty store, and bough a rich delicious Belgium chocolate, one that she knew would curry favor with her precious Antoinette. Then she went by the supermarket and picked up some chicken for the cats. On her way home she ran out of gas. That part sucked.