“Sleight of Hand”

 I find myself seriously considering a total disavowal of everything I've said about a key part of the whole story. As I sat again, trusting in how clever I think myself to be, wrongly I now know, staring at the picture of the slogan, I suddenly got a strange feeling. I was sure I could figure it out; the different hands involved, the positioning of the words and letters, why they look the way they do. I came up with a theory that I thought was clever, only to realize, that I was being a fool. For Gregory House, it's all about the puzzle, solving the puzzle. As I stared at it again, I got the feeling I was looking at puzzle that beckoned me to solve it, but for which there was no solution. But I tried. I felt certain that I had to continue; after all, it was at the heart of everything, and had been for 50 years. I turned around and saw Occam standing behind me. He was rather upset, and told me that I knew nothing about his razor. And he was right. Never afraid of playing the apostate, I came up with alternative theories about what actually happened in that house. It seemed to me that I came up with some good ones, and could pull different parts of the bigger puzzle together. I focused on commonalities that appeared in the testimony of those who were there, those who did what was done. The problem was, they were lying. And they weren't the only ones..I read the police testimony, and that seemed full of falsehood as well. I decided to ride along with the first responder. When we got there, it seemed that we weren't the first ones there at all. It was strange, but other police officers were there but we didn't know who they were, we didn't look at them, we didn't talk to them. We weren't there for that. So walking through the door that just swung open, I covered my eyes and ears (it's not reality after all), and stumbled twice walking through the door and tripped over the coffee table. Irregularities surfaced..who wasn't read their rights when, how evidence was collected at the scene. I couldn't pin down who was there. We brought a child downtown but couldn't remember who she was until prompted.The deputy coroner arrived, and I found it strange how one of the soon-to-be defendants was running all over the place, impossible to ignore as they muddied the water by carrying on about..I don’t know for sure, but if the court testimony is any guidepost, lies and lies that swirl around in a bucket where everyone else was dropping their lies. Testimony so preposterous, stories so clearly false, told by children, that I couldn’t help feeling, for just a moment, that that was the whole point. I listened in horror as children related the savage things they did. But it seemed strange that for things that happened over a very short period of time, no continuum emerged. I couldn’t picture what happened in that house. I got lots of little stories and statements about who did what to whom, but no chronology emerged, no real context; just lots of little stories. “Did you see anyone hit…” “Did you see anyone else…” Yes! And then another little story. One child suddenly says something bizarre. I do a double-take. “What?” And before I have time to think, I get another little story..this time, about a diaper. Now I by no means make light of the atrocity that took place in that house. But I was certain that what I was being told about it in the trial transcripts was false…mostly false.

So Occam was right. I had come up with a clever explanation for the slogan. I had to, it was standing in the way of my latest theory. So the latest theory had to go, and I was back to stories thrown around by lying children. But I couldn’t go back there…that lead to nowhere; perhaps, just where I was supposed to be going. My explanation for the slogan became so complicated, that I apologized to Occam for failing utterly to use his razor. There was one thing that has always sat at the heart of this case. There were a lot of statements about what was found on the body. Death was by subdural hematoma, there’s no doubt about it. But the two indications of brutality that stood taller than all the rest were the slogan, and the lesions.

I felt like Dr. House, putting medical things on his white board. The subject of “sores” kept popping up. A neighborhood boy told his neighborhood mom that a girl lived in the house with “running sores.” So the nurse from social services was told. And although unable to see the girl in the house, children with running sores aren’t uncommon, so it emerges. I thought of the Chicken Pox I had as a kid. But I also learned that measles vaccination was just in its infancy, and surprised to find out that it was once a childhood malady as common as my Chicken Pox. You got it as a kid, and got over it, and the running sores went away. I was surprised that the woman of the house told the nurse exactly who it was that had running sores, and then lied about her having been turned out of the house. Why not lie about both? When asked at the crime scene if she knew about the “punctate lesions,” the woman of the house said yes… again! Why wasn’t the girl taken to a doctor? The woman was treating her lesions, or so she said. I found stories of salt being placed into wounds as a torture. But it seemed rather eerie that if I momentarily dropped the torture part, I felt like I was looking at treating sores again. Other commonalities emerged, such as water and bathing. Meant as torment of course, but it was interesting nonetheless, in light of other considerations. Even indications of incontinence popped up again and again. I was almost putting symptoms on Dr. House’s whiteboard. Then I found out that all the children of the house had measles toward the end of school year 1964..more running sores children I suppose. But I adamantly believe that measles is irrelevant; Chicken Pox too.

I did come up with some better theories, and one I’m now inclined to feel sure about, albeit in a not-so-certain way. But I felt less impeded by 150 cigarette burns as the topic of sores kept popping up. And I can see sores in the photographs (or cigarette burns). Intentional cigarette burns are 2nd or 3rd degree burns, and take a while to heal. If the person is in a weak state, and the burns are not treated topically, infection will rage. I wondered how round they really were…if one chooses to burn themselves with a cigarette, they hold as still as possible. But if it is inflicted against someone’s will, which is torture, they writhe, squirm, scream, etc., naturally enough. I wondered how “round,” how pure in their punctateness, to make up a word for the deputy coroner, that cigarette burns would look if the person were constantly pulling away. They might not be so punctate at all.

All the same, I thought it was odd that someone kept admitting to knowing about sores and punctate lesions. That took me back to the…crime scene photos. I finally broke down and declared how lousy these photos are. I wondered if anyone could have done a worse job. But not just that! A succession of 3 photos showed that the scene had been altered significantly. We have two lousy photos taken in a dark room. I make out almost nothing. Except the filthy mattress, which I thought was one of the keys to the whole thing, and still do. But then I see a photo of a lit room! It doesn’t seem as bad as the room in the other ones. I can see what looks like a dresser; a roll-away bed, and a mattress on the floor. It seemed like a room two girls were staying in. And the mattress on which the girl was lying seems to me to be completely different. It looks much cleaner. It was odd that we get pictures that feature just the person on the filthy mattress, but no room. In the clean room photo, we see the girl lying on the mattress, and recognize the pants. But the face is obscured. Funny, photos with the person and no room, then a photo with a room and no identifiable person. So I came up with a theory. One that is partly wrong, but I think partly right, although for the wrong reason. The key was the mattress. I thought it indicated the horrible conditions someone was being kept in- upstairs. So to divert attention from this, the room is cleaned up and the person is placed on a clean mattress. But I finally realized how stupid I was, thinking that they were that stupid. Anyone looking at the pictures will see that the scene has been altered; it was brought up during the trial. They must have known that it would appear that way..and perhaps that would divert attention from the clear import; i.e. at some point, the scene was staged, with every attempt being made to ensure that anyone looking at the pictures would think the same thing. I’m not as smart as they aren’t stupid. But that’s when I got the strange feeling that the realization might not stop there. I was being manipulated.. I was letting others determine what I was looking at; determining where I was looking. So I wasn’t seeing something; something that was there. If the scene had been altered..just how much?

So I spent more time staring at the thing that was left looming in the road, trying to make sense of the puzzle. Then I felt like that’s what I was supposed to be doing; staring endlessly at a puzzle that’s not a puzzle; maybe it doesn’t make sense because it’s not supposed to make sense. Somebody wanted me staring at it, and not looking at something else. Something like the mattress in the “person photo.” Still, I was stuck again. I suddenly thought about how I didn’t have the truth about the scene..the photos saw to that- and now I know they can’t be trusted. Then I looked at the other photo again, and thought it rather convenient. It was a lousy photo too. But it dawned on me that I couldn’t see the face. I know who it was. But I knew who the person in the “room photo” was, even though I couldn’t see their face; another convenient thing. I knew who it was from the “person photo.” But I don’t trust the photos anymore. So I couldn’t think of a reason to trust the “slogan photo” either. The body lying half off the mattress, just like in the “person photo.” The shirt is pulled up just far enough. Why not take a good bird’s eye view photo? And why not include the person’s face in the photo? After all, I could object in court: “Your Honor! I move that this be excluded in so far as the identity of the person is not established!” But I’m no attorney, so I’m sure I’d be overruled. And I’m no doctor, but I couldn’t get past the appearance of the body. I see the upper chest; the rig cage. But the part of the body with my enigmatic slogan looks so remarkably flat. I couldn’t think why it would look like that. The medical authorities insisted that the person was malnourished, not starving. I got that feeling again, like I was being told where to look, and therefore was not looking at the things I should be focused on. Again, I was stupid, and they were smart. It takes someone very smart to seem so stupid, only to be so smart. And all analyses of the case would end up staring at the same specter looming in the middle of the road. Suddenly, Occam told me to use his razor, insisting that this time I do it correctly..the simplest explanation is usually the right one. That was what the case was all about. None of it made any sense. I was staring into a muddy river hoping it would clear up long enough to get a proper look, only to realize that there was simply too much mud in the river for that to ever happen. Perhaps a rather clear river has had so much mud dumped into it in order to prevent a clear view ever being possible. It wasn’t supposed to make any sense. So people would go about endlessly quoting lying witnesses’ stories about diapers, strange meaningless symbols that serve no purpose, sudden CPR skills that materialize out of nowhere, and 150 cigarette burns. A sudden descent into 3 weeks of savage madness owing its origins to, among other things, squabbling teenage girls. In a complicated way to be sure, I used Occam’s Razor, and things looked much simpler. But I looked at different things. An odd theme of symptomatology- running sores, and the like. The filthy mattress. And maybe even Phenobarbital, a powerful and dangerous tranquilizer. It was interesting, and I’m sure no more than that, to suddenly see a myriad of little details which could, maybe, shed light on the real atrocity committed in that house in 1965. And I know that an atrocity did take place there; of that I’m certain.

But I must conclude by disavowing all my clever theorizing about my enigmatic puzzle. I was wrong. If I could see another picture of it, not the one I’ve been staring at; i.e. another lousy photo of a staged crime scene, then I’m sure I’d declare myself wrong about being wrong, and set about seeking the solution again. I found no answer, because, perhaps, there isn’t one..at least where I was looking; and maybe that’s the point.

                                                                                                                                                                                            Techtonicus 12/2015