An Interlude...

I saw her there from afar
Her hair grey charcoal
Takes a drag from her tar
I kissed her a smile
But her blood red shot eye
Said the son never shines on closed doors
It's been eight long years since I saw
The woman who's labored
Since the day I was born
These wrinkles now face
To that cold dark damp place
Where the son never shines on closed doors
She said the son never shines on closed doors
I open to find only hurricanes blow
Take me away back to the green fields of May
Because the son never shines on closed doors
Death comes like a theif in the night
To steal while you sleep
The soul's flickering licght
Well maybe it's then
She said, I'll see you again
Because the son never shines on closed doors
She said the son never shines on closed doors
I open to find only hurricanes blow
Take me away back to the green fields of May
Because the son never shines on closed doors
And we all go the same way home
Yeah we all go the same way home

- Flogging Molly (The Greatest Band in the World)

Black Magic

New Orleans, birthplace of Voodoo in America. The haunt of vampire want-to-be’s, Goths, psychics, witches, warlocks, shamans…you name it, it was there. A melting pot of diversity and adversity. A city where you can go to mass and then go next door to invoke a curse with the local druid. A place where religion and music swirl together in a witch’s cauldron built of stone and blood. And all of this surrounded by the ancient weeping willows and magnolia trees that the deep, southern countryside is famous for.

New Orleans is a heart. A heart that beats and pumps it’s blood down the interstates and highways that run through that dark city like veins and arteries…and Interstate 10 is a main artery. Interstate 10 runs West and East from New Orleans…following the muddy Gulf of Mexico. I found myself East of New Orleans…forty-five miles east, to be exact, in a little town just off Interstate 10. The heart beats its black magic blood down that interstate and sometimes the blood spills into sleepy, little towns like the one I found myself in this night.

I received the call from the local investigators around 2:00 am, the phone screaming like a banshee in the middle of the night. It only took me a few minutes to get to the scene…my partner met me in the dusty, gravel driveway of the house we were to conduct our investigation in.

Upon arrival, I noticed more than one car present…but most of all, I noticed that big, silver car with flashing blue lights. Those lights…always there…snapping and flashing, lighting up the darkness…but also blinding. The investigator, tugging on his trouser belt, grunted as he got out of his car to meet us. I remember him talking about how he was getting to old for this and then he proceeded to give us a run-down of the situation in one-breath-check-sheet format.

His problem…he did not even know if a crime had been committed. The family, a group of Gypsies, had come home to find their patriarch dead at the kitchen table with his broken cane on the table next to him. I told the investigator we would take a look and started for the house but was intercepted by one of the most interesting looking ladies I have ever met. I remember every detail, her generous amount of gold jewelry, the yellow and blue scarf holding back her kinky, curly hair, her broad waistline…her haunted eyes…eyes that plead for closure, eyes that asked why…that looked ancient.

She clicked and jangled up to me and grabbed my arm on that cold, October night with the wind blowing strong from the Gulf…with the Heart pumping strong in the west. She looked at me and I watched her words turn to smoky vapor as they came out her mouth. “We have prayed to our Patriarch and his spirit still abides in this house. He will guide you in your search for answers”. Her cold hand made my body go warm…I felt flush as I looked at the business sign over the residence, it read in bright scarlet letters “Palm Reader and Witches Enlightment”. I was in a scary place…and I was scared.

But science is science and religion is religion and never the twain shall meet. Right? At least, that is what most scientists would have us believe…scientist who have not applied their techniques in the field…in a house inhabited by the spirit of the dead.

We walked into the house and it smelled like an open coffin. Not the rotten stench of a putrefied body but the smell of a dusty, dry mausoleum…just opened for the first time after a thousand years. Death…he was here…sure. But this was an older smell. Mixed with the piquant aroma of the herbs and powders used in various rituals within the house, this smell left me feeling heady and disconcerted.

Science took over as we examined the residence, sifting through obviously ancient reliquary artifacts and runic writings. We entered the kitchen where the family Patriarch was found. He was still there, sitting at the head of the table, slumped over the table with his head lying on his old and folded arms. A king in his castle, a king fallen from his throne, he sat there looking to be only asleep. But he was not asleep; death had visited him…and then his family…and then me. His family…the important part. They had found his broken cane next to him on the table. Who carefully places their cane on the table as they are dying? Answer: no one.

We combed through the house using several known methods, including the alternate light source – or blue light – it’s intensive light casting twisted shadows on the wall of the Gypsy abode. We found nothing…and our light kept going out. Finally, we realized we would have to resort to luminol. We turned the lights out to the residence and entered the kitchen with the Patriarch asleep at his throne.

The kitchen was quite in the early morning darkness. The “time-between-times” the ancient Celts called it, when our world and the spirit world merged and overlapped in the dark and holy places of the earth. In that still time we applied luminol to the walls of the Patriarchs mausoleum and it’s dim, blue glow winked back at us like the sputtering, flame in a holy shrine. All of the evidence we needed was on the walls the entire time. Medium-velocity impact spatter…evidence of a intense beating death…evidence of homicide invisible on the walls until we applied our alchemy. Homicide was the game of the day.

We walked outside into the blooming light of the newly rising Son. Blinking our eyes as newborn children first introduced to the light. The investigator, puffing on a clover cigarette met us and we informed him of our findings and we packed our gear eager to depart. I remember, as I was getting into my vehicle the Gypsy woman who had spoken to me before came jingling up-next to me and thanked me then introduced me to her uncle…the new Patriarch of the family. The king…

The old king is dead. All hail the new king…long live the king. Suspect number one…

Some drugs for your death...

My heart was pounding. My chest felt like a taut Jamaican drum beating out the wild, erratic rhythm of some medicine man's ritual dance. My thoughts skittered across the surface of my brain while my feet tapped a staccoto beat on the floorboard of the crime scene van. My first crime scene...ever. It's kind of funny how, in moments of great life importance, how you remember the strangest and smallest details. I remember the smell of the crime scene van. The newly cleaned interior, the smell of sterile latex gloves overlayered by an almost tangible aroma of anticipation. I remember looking over at the driver of the vehicle, my partner and part-time mentor, who appeared composed and as tranquil as the Buttahatchie River on a lazy summer day. But I knew the Buttahatchie and I knew my partner, though I had only been with the lab for a week, and what appears tranquil can sometimes be very turbulent beneath the surface. But he was an old hat at this stuff right. As we careened down Interstate 10, heading west, lights blazing and snapping like drunk lightning I thought, "Does anyone ever REALLY become an old hat at this?". I watched the green trees and dark murky swamps slip by, sweltering in the July summer heat and those colors began to run together. My mind wandered and those colors reformed into an image of a lumbering 747 jet touching down in the Tel Aviv airport reviving feeling of anticipation...the feeling that I felt in Tel Aviv when I first stepped out onto that rusty disboard ladder and felt that ancient Middle Eastern wind hit me full in the face...the feeling that I was starting a journey. Why did I feel that?

We arrived on scene. Chaos. Pain. Death. The smell of oil and exhaust. Feet thumping the pavement. Car doors slamming. Death. Death. He always greets you at a death scene. In one form or another he is always there, always standing over your shoulder and inspecting your work and, possibly, weighing your worth.

The scene was a small house, rundown...not much too it. Although I don't remember much about the scene itself I remember ordering the officers out of the residence and walking into the room where the victim was lying. I remember the smell...she had been lying on that old, rough carpet for two days in the heat and it was bad...real bad. At the time, thank God, it was the worst thing I had ever seen. Some talk about how peaceful a person who has died looks but I have never found this to be true. We are creatures of life and death is not a fair maiden. Indeed, he is a creature that is the antithesis of everything we were created for...death is a punishment. Not necessarily something to be feared as much as loathed. Regardless, I was there and I was left to come to terms with what I was facing. My mentor left me in the room with the victim under orders to process the room for any evidence. I realize now that he did this on purpose in order to force me to bend or break and...he had already solved the mystery...a simple case. My young, untrained eyes had missed the open pill bottle next to her outstretched hand. Motive was depression...Manner of death was suicide...Some drugs for your death...

I bent but I did not break and the scene became a job and I realized my purpose then and there...and for-ever-more. I am a crime scene investigator. Death visits a person and then I visit them. I give the victim a voice...one voice from beyond the grave...a voice for justice and the hearing of the truth...my purpose.

My name is Austin and I am a crime scene investigator. I know...I know...it sounds REALLY cool. I can't say that I ever believed in destiny or fate...and I don't know if I do now, but the path I traveled to reach this strange place where I now stand is a long and twisted one. I didn't so much find forensic science as IT found ME. Let me explain...no, it is too much...let me sum up.

I started out as an aspiring actor. Actor...aspiring...I guess, as much as you can be an aspiring actor in highschool. I tried out for the acting program in two colleges and got full scholarships to both...William Carey College and NYU (New York University). Here is the part where everyone says "Oh! How did you like your time in New York" and I say, "Um, I went to William Carey...in Hattiesburg, Mississippi." What?! All I can say is love will make you do non-sensible things and at 17 when you are crazy in love 2,000 miles seems an insurmountable distance. It was the best "non-sensible" thing I have done in my life.

One year into the program I realized that acting, as a profession, was not for me...maybe one day but not now. So, I transferred to Mississippi State University and changed my major to Anthropology/Archaeology. I fell in love with MSU, fell in love with the college life of research and study and, along the way, fell very deeply in love with Amy Minton.

I spent the next four years very deeply engrossed in my studies and my dream to become a famous professor and archaeologist. Sound familiar? Was I still trying to play a role? I became very invovled in archaeology and religion studies and traveled to the Middle East a number of times...once with my wife...and had many dazzling adventures with romance and treasure and ferociously-heroic fights at the end of them...and then the credits rolled...I graduated...

Yes, college graduation. The great abyss, the brink of the dark chasm where a young person teeters precariously thinking that their life is over or it may have just begun. The fine wire of adversity where you shine or fall...I fell. I was married and very happy...but I was working two jobs, at a sign shop during the day and a theatre at night. The hours sucked but, hey, I got to see ALL the movies I wanted. Apparently, there is not a big demand for archaeologist in the job market.

During my college daze I had began to study something called Forensic Anthropology and, when a job posting for forensic scientist was shown to me by a friend of mine, I decided that my studies may be applicable. I soon found myself employed by the Crime Scene Investigation Unit of the Mississippi Crime Lab. My wife and I spent the next three years living in Biloxi, Mississippi and learning to live a life completely independent of our former lives...in short, it was GREAT. My team was responsible for investigating homicides and violent deaths, kidnapping, sexual assault and other violent crimes. Our jurisdiction...the entire state of Mississippi. In the three years that I worked for the State Crime Lab I worked more than 100 homicides, 32 sexual assaults, 4 kidnappings and nuerous other violent crimes...I was busy! On top of all of this the lab sent me to various training classes...about one or two weeks out of every month. It was a crazy busy time but I am telling you it was FUN! I learned to really love my job and Amy and I were close to everything...just 45 minutes away from New Orleans and an hour-and-a-half from Destin.

So why come back to Columbus?? The biggest mystery is often the easiest to answer. Remember: All things being equal the simplest answer is usually the correct one. Answer: We missed everyone. Family and friends...the history and soul-like essence that can only abide in the place you grew up...the place where those dusty, faded memories almost turn palpable and are wiped clean as you round an old familiar corner or sip a glass of tea in the shade of the tree your father, grandfather and great grandfather sat under doing the exact same thing, or hear a childhood friend laugh for the thousandth time. How can you REALLY explain it? We went somewhere bigger and louder and more entertaining and realized..we wanted something simpler.

I am now using my gifts to better Columbus, Mississippi. The sleepy little town with not a whole lot to offer but memories...and lifelong friends...well, maybe it has everything to offer. I have made a commitment, sworn an oath, to Columbus and am prepared to keep it and to make it a safer and better place to live...by using science.

I have so many stories though that I am afraid will fade now that I have moved out of the "lime-light" of the BIG state crime lab. They weigh on my mind sometimes and haunt my dreams...the things that I have seen...the mysteries that I have uncovered in the sands of a middle eastern desert and the back country and alley ways of Mississippi. I will share them with you now...