A Ghost of a Crime
Dead men tell no truths like they tell no tales
To be perfectly honest, the day I died was only the second worst thing that happened to me. The first was when my girlfriend of two years dumped me.
I don’t remember how I died. All I know was that I was with my friend Greg when it happened. The detectives were at his place running their investigation.
“Do you remember what happened?” Detective Davenport inquired.
In a distraught state Glen answered. “It happened so suddenly, I panicked and I couldn’t move.”
“When did you think of calling us?” Davenport asked.
“It was – I don’t know five – no ten minutes after Owen collapsed!”
“Why did you wait so long?”
“I tried CPR on him. I thought I could revive him.” Glen broke down into a series of sniffs and chokes.
I couldn’t help but gawk at the explanation. Glen never learned how to do CPR, the thought of being around a dying person scared him so much.
Gazing upon my dead corpse made me cringe. The way I died seemed so undignified. Did I really have to look like I crapped myself? Bad enough that my bowels had likely gave out after my untimely demise. I recall I was in dire need of the washroom when I died. It was a good thing ghosts can’t smell.
“Have you received training in CPR?” Davenport’s partner, Detective Greensbrooke, asked.
It came as a shock to me when Glen nodded.
“I took CPR training as part of the course to become a firefighter.” Glen elaborated.
I guess it’s a good thing nobody could hear me, because I flipped out. Glen never told me about that! I believed he was such a scaredy cat, the idea of joining any first responder’s unit, let alone the fire division was unthinkable! Glen promised there would be no secrets between us! I recalled every little thing I shared with him, sparing only the irrelevant details.
“How long ago was that?”
“Last year.”
I dug through my memories to recall what we did then. I was with my girlfriend, Amanda, visiting Glen at that point. We were watching the news at that point; a fire had gone off in a building trapping eleven people. I could remember Glen shaking uncomfortably at the sight. My girlfriend was comforting him at the time. Drawing up that memory only made me so much angrier.
My best friend lied to me in my face. It was just as bad as that time when Amanda told me I was petty and needed to be more accepting of others. I chewed her out proper for that insult.
I walked up and punched Glen in the face. As expected, my ghostly hand passed through without harming him. That only served to make me so rageful.
“Did your friend have any health problems? Anything he might have told you about?” Davenport asked.
“Um, yes Owen did tell me he was diagnosed with High Blood Pressure. He also said he had memory problems, Retrograde Amnesia I think.”
I don’t remember telling Glen that? What else was he hiding? How did I die?
I took a closer look at my body. There seemed to be no damage revealed on the skin. No wounds or anything to indicate a wound. But I was dead, so something had to have happened to me for this to have happened.
“Did you and Owen have any issues? Anything that would have put the two of you at odds with each other?” Asked Greensbrooke.
Glen sighed. “I don’t even know where to begin. Owen had a lot of problems. He was a very angry person; he got into a lot of fights with people over some of the stupidest things.”
“That’s not true!” I yelled into Glens’ ear, “It’s not my fault people are idiots!”
Glen continued unaware of his friends’ verbal assault. “Owen was also a control freak. Amanda told me many of the fights they’ve been in. There was one instance when Amanda tried to paint the walls purple, Owen told her to paint them red instead.”
“Purple is a stupid color!” I raved. It truly was.
“There was that time when Amanda wanted to go to the opera. But Owen wanted to go watch the football game. He argued with her so much she had to give in and do what he wanted. She was so miserable when she told me about that.”
I snorted. “That bitch has no taste.”
“If there was one thing Owen was infamous for, it was his narcissism. He thought everything he said and did was above reproach and thought everyone was stupid for thinking otherwise.”
“It’s not narcissism if it’s true!” I shouted again.
I couldn’t believe it; all of those awful things Glen was saying about me. After ten years of friendship, this was how he repaid me? I pretty much reached peak rage at this point.
I really started investigating the crime scene. I could not touch anything, so my options for searching were very limited. I could really only observe the evidence that was out in the open. Nothing stood out to me, at least nothing out of the ordinary.
Or so it seemed.
A coat, one meant for my personal frame. It hung where I left it when I arrived at Glen’s place. I took stock of my apparel to find a clue to my demise.
I soon found something. Meth, a whole bag of it just sitting in my coat pocket. I don’t remember having that on me at any point. Glen had to have placed the meth there to make it seem like I overdosed. It all made sense, he must have hated me so much that he poisoned me, not that I could remember.
Turning on the detectives, I started waving at them.
“Hey over here you stupid cops!”
When no one acknowledged me, I remembered that I was still a ghost. I hated being dead so much.
“Did you two have a falling out?” Detective Davenport asked.
Glen nodded. “About two weeks ago. It was shortly after Amanda dumped him.”
“Hey, I dumped her!” I corrected him knowing it wouldn’t work.
“Owen came to me telling me it was my fault for the way things ended up between them. That was when he told me we were no longer friends. He told me he never wanted to see me again and stormed out.”
“I don’t remember that!”
I didn’t know how more of this I could take. I never felt so disrespected in my life. The only thing that kept me from leaving was the desire to see the detectives arrest Glen for my murder. He deserved nothing less.
“Can you tell us what Owen was doing here before he died?” Detective Greensbrooke asked.
Glen almost lost his breath. “I’m not too sure. He arrived banging on my door from out of nowhere. He forced his way in when I opened the door. I tried to send him on his way, telling him I’d call the cops.”
Greensbrooke frowned. “Did Owen get violent with you?”
Yes, that had to be it! Glen assaulted me and then forced meth down my throat. I was poisoned by way of overdose resulting in my shameful display on the floor.
“No.” Glen answered, “All he did was yell at me some more. It was just more of the same, blaming me for his falling out with Amanda.”
I scoffed. “Please, I’m better off without her anyways.”
“That was when I finally snapped. I shouted at Owen telling me it was because of him Amanda and I ended up together. That was when it happened, when he …..”
I gawked at Glen. I mean come on, that would imply his confession was what did me in. There was no way.
Davenport continued with the questions. “Did Owen have any strange smells, sounds, behaviors of any kind? Anything unusual at all?”
“Yeah, he smelled like meth. He was practically bathed in the stuff.”
I definitely don’t remember that. I watched as Detective Greensbrooke walked over to my coat retrieving the drugs. Seeing it out of my pocket revealed that nearly half the bag was empty. Detective Davenport examined my body, taking a finger to the corner of my nose. Sure enough, a light amount of white powder was found.
“Did you know Owen was taking drugs?”
Glen shook his head. “Not until today.”
“No way, there’s no way.” I denied the signs. I could not have been that stupid.
“I think I know what happened here.” Detective Davenport said.
“What?” I asked.
“Your friend did a mountain of drugs before coming here to chew you out. In his drug induced state, combined with his high blood pressure and elevated levels of stress, only one conclusion can be met.”
“No, no, no!”
“When you told Owen you were dating Amanda, he had a heart attack and died. And then he crapped himself afterwards.”
I really hated everything then and there. I was so glad to be a ghost.
Would you say Owen’s fate was deserved?
How would you feel if the ghost of your dead friend was watching your police interrogation?
Do you think Glen and Amanda will be better off without Owen?