Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe

The next morning at breakfast, Antoinette had cooked some delicious over easy eggs seasoned with dill and salty enough to deter robber barons, accompanied by pancakes with maple syrup and unscrupulous amounts of butter. The usual stringently dark coffee, Lauren would have hers without cream or sugar, while Antoinette not having to prove anything to anyone obsessed hers with sugar and cream. If you ever wanted to see a true expression of distaste all you had to do was switch coffee cups, on occasion, even with their mostly mismatched cups, Lauren would accidentally taste the overwrought sweetness of Antoinette’s coffee, the failed bitterness as constipated by the cream, and you could just imagine the rocky coast of whales on Lauren’s brow.

Fortunately this morning the two lovers were complaining about their failure to make it into the cozy bed and so could amply express that couches were never made for sleeping, maybe for sex, hence the love seat, a sort of couch for teenagers, which is so uncomfortable people are always trying to get on top of each other to stay comfortable, or the ever ridiculous and heavy sofa bed, solely of course to suggest a guest to stay no more than a night, properly intended to discourage any delaying from departing guest. Obviously the sofa bed and the love seat display a clear and direct line of understanding between furniture designers and their customers. You wouldn’t want me to comment on a lazy chair, and besides this is the Lauren and Antoinette show, my commentaries are leftovers here.

It was while chatting about this and that, Antoinette discussing her latest photo shoots, photos of Loki and Pacho set against cotton balls and toiletry, and last nights commercial, where Antoinette discussed how silly all the shopping channel circus had seemed, that Lauren paused her, “Wait tell me again, tell me again what was happening.” Antoinette complied, “All these people were buying up polyester as if it were a unique once in life time item, and all of them were rushing to buy thus adding momentum to a feeding frenzy and yet unaware that their actions were making others buy and thus equally reducing the uniqueness of the purchase or the likelihood of it becoming classic wear any time soon. (twirling her arm up in the air) Or maybe I am wrong about that, maybe classic wear is something that is worn a lot, maybe…” Within seconds of those notes Lauren was on the phone asking to meet with Habakkuk.

Later…

“Listen to me Habakkuk I need your awareness of the Akashic record, I need to know something, is it possible for their to be a collective knowledge of an event, that is to say that if some one got killed, (she was being anxiously expressive) does that too become knowledge within the Akashic archives, I mean, pounding her finger on the table, I mean does the information become part of the collective knowledge?” Habakkuk wiped his forehead with the napkin, his nose started developing moisture underneath his nostrils, he did not like to answer metaphysical questions, he now felt it was pointless and it could all lead to strange troubles and situations which he had no control over but that he could be blamed for. In the case of Antoinette and Lauren he felt responsible that their circumstances led to a lesbian relationship, he was sure that in another context they would have never gone so deep into it. And now Lauren was asking this, so he decided to coyly ask a question instead, suspecting that within some context, if he gave Lauren the proper answer she would not know what to do with it.

“Why do you ask?”

She replied, “A man died, a priest, “Archbishop Timothy Wellington”, I don’t know why I am asking you this, they tell me he died of natural causes, but he was taking an anti depressant, Paxil, and while there was no evidence of foul play, he was found prostrate on the altar, and one of his fellow priest gave me the creeps, and while it all seems fine, and I could write it off as another solved non case, I can’t; but of course there were no witnesses, no one will even say that it was his habit to sleep on the altar, though one priest did claim that it was a priestly possibility.”

“I think you are stumbling into the high ground of criminology, where cases are solved through what a detective might intuit from the Akashic archives, often when you gain access to the records, you have to draw lines of connectivity so that the records may guide you to the appropriate conclusions, witnesses are often the best source of direct connection and serve as an index so that the intuitive detective can reconstruct the crime, but you say you had no witnesses, this decreases your chances of accessing the Akashic record.”

“But are you then saying Habakkuk, are you saying what I think you are saying, that the crime, catching her lack of objectivity) if it is a crime, would be recorder in the Akashic and all of humanity has access to it?”

“Indeed.”

“Then what do I do to gain access to it, what do I do Habakkuk help me out here.”

“I would like to help you but I am opening up a burrito hut, and that is taking up all of my time right now, and I can’t get metaphysical when I am making refried beans.”

Lauren lost her tension and joined her friend with a smile.

“Tell you what you can do, you have to draw a connection between him and you and the killer, the way to do that is to get near to those that were nearest to him, that way you will have an opening to his Akashic time line and where and why it ends; the archives tend to open to those that have the scent of the “within” the archive.”

On kissing her good bye he noted, “Keeping part of his physical self with you might help, the dead always keep on trying to find themselves in the physical world, a hair perhaps.”

Her arms at her side, standing there talking to herself, “Where do I start?”

The name Bill Rosen came immediately to mind. That was the archbishops psychiatrist. Lauren wasted no time, made her way to his office and unkindly requested that Dr Rosen cancel his next appointment so that she could question him. When she arrived Bill was not in a good mood, nor was he the type to like women wearing red shoes, and for some strange reason Lauren had decided to were her red shoes against a well fitted gray pant suit, made an entrance. Habakkuk might have told her that a hostile interview wasn’t conducive to triangulating and indexing the Akashic but then Habakkuk was too busy with his burritos for the finer details.

The questioning did not go well, Bill was most uncooperative to the point where he could not possibly be a suspect, he would say things like, “Detective I don’t have the time for this, lots of people die in the world every day, some of natural causes, some of not so natural causes, I am an atheist when an archbishop dies I am all for it.”

“But he was your patient surely you wanted to cure what ailed him?”

“Look before he died I was trying to convince him that he should find more help from god than from a psychiatrist, he just wanted to come and sit here and watch me as if watching me was going to cure him or something, and I hate to admit it I don’t like patients that make me feel uncomfortable. As a last resort I told him that I was the wrong type of therapist for his case, I wanted to offload him on a friend of mine that loves Skinner and he would have enjoyed the operant antics of faith, but not me Detective, I was done with him.”

“Did he mention any friends to you?”

“What?”

“Did he mention any friends people he knew or he played golf with, or family?”

The doctor was impatiently playing with his fingers against the wood on the chair, and yet he scrounged up a gesture of disbelief, “this guy didn’t have any friends, he was a loner, he wasn’t even a homosexual priest, he probably wasn’t friends with the angels or with god, maybe god killed him, who knows but I can say this, you want to see a loner, this guy was a loner, he had nothing to say, didn’t even want to talk to me, and I can tell you that if he had family he had left them, the church must have been his excuse to abandon all comradeship and to avoid any pretence of love or human touch.”

“Do you see many cases like that?”

“We see cases like that all the time but they are usually insane, the problem with Timothy is that he wasn’t insane, he was maybe too sane, even to the point where it would seem irrational for him to believe in a god.”

“Did that not intrigue you Doctor Rosen?”

“Look, I went to a nice school and studied psychiatry because it was the only thing that I knew how to do easily enough to get away with it. I got a very nice home, a nice car, I like to read and vacation often, I am not some brain doctor that wants to discover the inner workings of the human psyche, nor do I possess the ego to believe myself a genius, I am just a worker bee just like you detective, putting in my hours, lets leave it at that.”

“Thank you for your time Dr Rosen, I don’t think I have any more questions but if something jolts your mind give me a call.”

Lauren left somewhat satisfied, two important developments had taken place, she could easily eliminate Rosen as a suspect, and what he had said about Timothy certainly implied that there was more to this case and to his death than was readily apparent.

She called ahead to make an appointment with Father Trocin and on her way to the church she stopped by the morgue, where Danny had already removed a sample of the Cardinals hair. As he handed it to her, “You’re really flipping lady, I don’t know what the rose thief is up to, I told you he died of natural causes, haven’t you got enough real murders to solve?” “Danny I fancy myself a true detective like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, we enjoy solving impossible cases.” Danny knew his dear friend was on to something, “do you want to let me in on it?” “don’t ya worry your going to be in it up to your ears.” And with that she rushed over to the church.

Father Trocin was exiting a confession booth, he walked up to Lauren, clasping his hands together and said, “I just dispatched another sinner from his guilt.” “I am sure you find that power rather comforting Father Trosin.” His hands unclasped and he got his face real close to hers, “the name is “Trocin” with a “c” it’s not too much, it’s the name my parents gave me, it’s the name the lord wanted me to have, I respect the name, its important to respect something even in this jaded world.” “I am sorry Father Tro”c”in, I will bare more care when enunciating it.” “Thank you. Now how may I be of service to you?”

“Well as you know I am working the Archbishops case,” he interrupted… “but wasn’t that closed already, he died of natural causes, what more is there to that.” (Lauren molesting her hair back,) “…it could seem a closed and obvious case but I still have to investigate and answer all the typical questions so that my Captain will think I am still doing my job, besides, I can’t pass up the temptation of solving a crime that doesn’t require solving.”

They walked out to the garden, sat on a concrete bench, and looked out over a beautiful lawn enhanced by the flowers and the flirting birds.

“Would you consider yourself a friend of the Archbishops?”

Father Trocin covering his mouth so as not to spill any spit, “I don’t think I was a friend of the Archbishops, no wouldn’t go that far, we serve the church you see, we didn’t really have any reason to be friends.”

“But aren’t priest friends amongst themselves or is that frowned upon?”

“Oh no, we are rather good at being mostly both, then there is always a cantankerous priest among the lot, I pride myself in being that one in this flock, however archbishop Wellington was not a man given to musing over tea or wine, he was a rather studious figure that held a distance from his parishioners as well as his church fellows. I think he considered it his duty to remain distant, it was as if to say, the sin can not be given birth if we avoid human contact, or at least suspicion of sin could not be given birth, but who knows maybe it was something else, our conversations were always to the point, and I never much cared to get to know him, I have other ways to seek out my future within the church.”

“Has any parishioner ever complained about him, and complained about him in a confession to you or anyone else?”

Father Trocin held back an immediate reply, showing discomfort with the question but then recovered himself and delivered a soothing response.

“I don’t know of anyone who has. No, I don’t know of anyone that might have said something in that regard, but then Detective Lauren, even my god wouldn’t let me answer to anyone else but him, so you place a man of faith in an uncomfortable situation.”

Lauren realized that all the doors to Father Trocin’s mind were now closed, she wasn’t giving up on him, she still thought that he knew more than he was telling, but she would have to come back with something more tangible than a strand of Timothy’s hair in her pocket.

“Father I appreciate your being so honest and helpful, could I trouble you some more? (without waiting for a reply.) …I will need a list of all the parishioners that attended the archbishop’s mass, or that had any regular contact with him. I want to arrange for an interview with any and all them, this Sunday would be best that way we can move forward and the church doesn’t have to endure months of investigations.”

Father Trocin was taken aback and he knew he had to cooperate, so he made arrangements for a session of questioning Sunday’s parishioners, after mass they would be asked to speak to the police, any and all of them, and the police would not allow any of them to leave, until they had all signed a statement that they had or had nothing to do with the archbishop.

The birds, the garden and the flowers continued to chime mighty fine, even as Father Trocin followed Lauren’s leaving with the devil in his eyes.