How well can you really know anyone? Your pastor gets arrested for child pornography, your dentist for assault. These things happen and people say, “We never saw it coming. He seemed like a good guy. He was in church every Sunday.” Brandon stepped over the caution tape, walked up the steps to the old house and swung the tattered screen door aside. The house was old, but in Alabama with the humidity so high for so long, paint pulls and curls away from surfaces leaving things looking older than they actually are. Police were already on the scene. He looked around as if he’d been here before. It was a small town and this was a well-known house with its bright blue exterior. He looked at the wall and read, “Dear Macon, you did this.” The words written in blood or shit above the bodies. It was difficult to discern now that the humidity mingled all the fetid odors of a homicide. “Scene secure. Victims DOA. Both shot in the head. Not sure why 911 sent you. We need the coroner in route,” Officer Patterson said. “Oh I was just in the area, saw the lights, thought I might be of service. What happened?” Paramedics always want to know if they can “be of service” when really they just want to be privy to information others aren’t. More often than you would ever feel comfortable with, these first responders waste no time pulling out their phones and sharing intimate images of your tragedy, your worst day. Cynicism and boredom eventually find their way into any profession. Your whole world comes crashing down and their evening’s entertainment is the way in which your wife’s mouth contorted after she had taken her final breath. No one is the good guy all the time. “Murder/suicide... or the suspect is at large. We’re trying to keep the media in the dark for now. Cameras and crowds are the last thing we need.” “No shit. Got any leads?” “Nothing. These people were quiet and mostly kept to themselves. My guess is a pissed off client. I’m not counting murder/suicide out just yet, but I mean we can’t rush to conclusions.” Brandon was silent, looking off over Patterson’s head. “Brandon, you look like shit, you feeling ok?” “Who fuckin’ knows. I’m fine not sleeping worth a shit. But my shift is done and I’m headed to the house. Good luck with the shitshow.” “Thanks, man.” Brandon took a final look around as he was heading back to his truck. Being a paramedic, perhaps he could see something the cops couldn’t see. Different types of emergency training create different blind spots. He stood there with his eyes closed, breathing in the smell of wet dirt from the summer downpour earlier. Hindsight is always 20/20, but foresight is what could save someone. The difference between solving a crime and preventing one. Brandon was an underpaid history teacher during the school year and an underpaid paramedic during the summer. A couple more months and he’d be back in the classroom, but for now it was responding to the crisis of the day. Each subsequent DOA became easier. Eventually you detach the death from the actual person. Becoming desensitized is the only useful coping mechanism. Either you save yourself and lose touch with your humanity, or succumb to the horrors and lose grip on your own sanity. Officer Patterson sat alone at his desk. The sun was dropping and the warm orange glow in the room was making his eyelids heavy. He stood up and headed for the coffee pot. Suddenly the phone rang and his mug fell to the floor. Reaching across the desk and stepping through the puddle of coffee, he grabbed the phone quickly before the caller could decide to hang up. “Macon County Sheriff’s Office,” he answered and waited for a voice to come back to him. “I know what happened in the blue house,” the caller said. “The name is Nolan Parker. I know because I’m the one who killed them.” He sent officers to the address Mr. Parker had given him. They found him shirtless, sitting on his porch waiting with his arms wrapped around his knees. An unlit cigarette hung from his lips and his eyes were vacant. He didn’t seem to be conscious, but he was able to move and follow commands. He wouldn’t or couldn’t speak to them, but they easily coaxed him into the squad car and took him back to the station. They had their man and could begin on the mind-numbing drudgery of the paperwork. A confession at least makes things move a little smoother. “Leave a message,” Brandon’s voicemail instructed. “Thought you’d like to know our favorite schizo Nolan Parker called and confessed to the blue house murder,” Officer Patterson told the silence after the beep. The autopsies came back a few days later, which revealed extremely high levels of insulin in their bloodstreams. The gunshots only smoke and mirrors done after the fact. The insulin is what killed them. Blind spots. A paramedic would know that gunshots to the head would distract an investigation while waiting for the routine autopsy results to come back from the lab. A paramedic would have access to insulin. A paramedic would know that officers would welcome a confession. An underpaid paramedic losing his grip on reality could talk the local schizophrenic off the ledge and into making a false confession. How well can you really know anyone? The people you work with, the people you grew up with, the people who teach your children. Brandon missed his shift. Brandon wouldn’t be at school in the fall. He headed West with Macon County in his rear view. He thought back on the smell of wet dirt and the sticky sick smell that hung over the bodies. They say the murderer always revisits the scene of the crime. No one is the good guy all the time.