Chapter 33 disabled gossip detective story

Right now, Sarah Bournon is looking at her best wooden rolling pin.She swung it around, trying to feel how hard it felt, and hit her outstretched palm hard.She moved the bottles and jars on the rack above the washing machine and shook the bottle of bleach to see how much was left. If she could hear me, if she would listen to me, I'd tell her it's okay to kill me.I'll even tell her what to do. My rental car is parked over there on the road, and if you're listening to the radio, it's about a song away.If you're counting your steps while being startled, it's about two hundred paces.She can walk over and drive the car back.A dark red Buick is probably already covered with dust because of the many cars passing by on that gravel road.She could have parked right next to this little tool shed, or the garden shed, or whatever she called it, where I was kept.

Just in case she was outside, or within earshot, I called out, "Sarah? Sarah Bunnon?" "You have nothing to feel bad about," I yelled. I am locked in, but I can still guide her, let her complete this matter, and tell her how to do it.Next, she had to find a screwdriver to loosen the clips and remove the tin pleated tubing attached to the back of the dryer, and she could then use the same set of clips to secure the tubing to the row of my car. In the trachea, this tube can extend far, far beyond your expectations.My gas tank is almost full.She could probably use a power drill to make a hole in the wood side of the cabin, or in the door, and she was a woman, and she could make holes where she couldn't see later.

It is very important for her place to look good.Because that's all she has. "Your life is the same as mine was," I said. "I can see your thoughts on things." She can secure the tube to the hut with a few strips of duct tape.If you want to kill me faster, you can also cover the cabin with a large plastic sheet, and then tie the plastic sheet to the four walls with ropes to turn this place into an airtight smoke room.In less than five hours, she had two hundred pounds of sausage. Most people have never even killed a chicken, let alone killed someone.Most people have no idea how difficult it is.

I promised to just take deep breaths. The report from the insurance company said her name was Sarah.Sarah Bournon, aged forty-nine.I have been working as a senior baker in a bakery for seventeen years.She used to be able to carry a sack of flour that weighed as much as a ten-year-old boy on her shoulders, and she could also undo the seams on the front side of the bag while supporting it on her shoulders, and pour the flour into the rotary mixer bit by bit.According to her, on her last day at work, the floor mopped the night before was still wet.The lighting there is not good either.The weight of the flour caused her to fall backwards, hitting her head against the iron edge of a table, resulting in amnesia, migraines, and weakness that prevented her from doing any strenuous work.

The CT scan was OK, the MRI was OK, the X-ray was OK, but Sarah Bournon never went back to work.Sarah Bournon, married three times, had no children.There is a little social welfare money, and a little compensation paid by the company every month.She took twenty-five milligrams of painkillers for the habitual pain that radiated from her brain to her spine to her arms.For several months, she also asked her doctor to prescribe sedatives or sleeping pills. Less than three months after she settled with the company, she moved here, out in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors around. At this very moment, I sit in her hut, with my right foot apparently bent backwards, my knee must have been broken, and my nerves and tendons half-turned.Everything below the knee was numb.It's too dark to see, but from where I'm sitting I can smell cow dung, the slippery feel of plastic that must be composting sacks of compost in her garden, and a A shovel, a hoe and a rake.

Poor Sarah Bournon, right now she's checking her power tools.The thought of her sawing with a chainsaw made me sick, because instead of sawdust, what came out was a cloud of blood, flesh, and bone from the whirling blade.Hey, it also requires her to have a long enough extension cord.She was looking at the labels of paint cans, slug killers, cleaners, etc., to see if there was a skull and two crossbones on the labels.Or the frowning green face of Mr. Vomit.She called the local poison hotline to find out how much barbecue grease a grown man would have to drink before being fatal.Sarah quickly hung up the phone when the toxicologist on the other side asked her why she was asking.

The reason why I know this is... 10 years ago, I was delivering large cans of beer to many small bars and small restaurants for a middle-order dealer.These are too small to have unloading bays, so I have to double park or park in what are called suicide lanes, where there are cars speeding to and fro on both sides.I would carry kegs of wine on my back, or put cases of beer on carts, until there was one in the traffic that was big enough for me to rush through.It was never too late to arrive on time, and finally, completely by accident, a wine barrel tumbled off the shelf, knocking me to the ground, unconscious.

After that, I found a good place that was almost as good as this one.A rusted trailer, going nowhere, parked next to an outhouse with only a hole in it.Ahead is a gravel road through the woods.I have a four-cylinder manual Ford to drive around town, an annuity for total disability, and endless hours. For the rest of my life, the only thing I have to do is keep my car running.I was so drugged up that just a walk in the sun felt like a massage, or even a round of pistol for me after the massage. Just looking at the little birds at the bird feeders, those hummingbirds, or throwing in a few peanuts and watching the pine trees and the chipmunks scramble to eat them makes me laugh so much after drugging.It was a good enough life, the kind of good life Americans dreamed of: a life without an alarm clock, clocking in and out, or wearing a fucking hairnet.A dream life where you don't have to get some jerk's approval to take a shit first.

Yes, Sarah Bournon had nothing else to do until this afternoon but read the paperback novels she borrowed from the library, watch the hummingbirds, and swallow those little white pills.Live the dream vacation that should never end. It's annoying that, whether you're disabled or not, you have to at least act like you're disabled.You walk with a limp, or your head and neck are stiff, indicating that you cannot turn.Even if your blood is full of painkillers, this faux pas can start to make you feel bad.If any symptom is pretended for a long time, it will really hurt.You walk around with a limp, and then your knees start to really hurt.If you sit all the time, you will become a big fat hunchback.

American-style fantasy leisure can quickly become boring.And yet, you get paid to be a disabled person, sitting in front of the TV, laying in a hammock, and watching those goddamn animals.If you're not working, you don't want to sleep. During the day and night, you're half asleep and bored. On daytime TV, you can tell what people are watching by following three advertisements.The ads were for alcoholic rehabilitation clinics, or law firms for disability suits, or schools that offered a vocational correspondence diploma to become an accountant, a private eye, or a locksmith. If you're someone who watches daytime TV, here's your new statistic.You're a drunk, or a cripple, or an idiot, and after the first two or three weeks, the lazy days get boring.

You don't have the money to travel, but it doesn't cost you to dig the soil with a shovel, maintain your car, or grow some vegetables in your garden. One night, after it was very dark, a swarm of mosquitoes and deerflies surrounded the electric light at my door. I was in my trailer, making a large cup of hot tea and swallowing a few pills.I put down the book I was reading and looked at the bugs outside the window. At this moment, I heard a voice, a man's voice, shouting from the dark place in the woods behind. Someone called for help, someone is coming, help!He slipped and hurt his back.He told me that he fell from a tree. In the middle of the night, he was wearing a brown suit and a mustard-yellow vest.A pair of covered brown leather shoes said he was watching birds.A pair of binoculars hung on a strap around his neck.That's what they teach in the correspondence school, and if you get caught by a suspect, say you're a bird watcher.I said I'd help him with his briefcase, and we each held out an arm to hug each other, and slowly, very slowly, we walked back toward the door light of my trailer home. When we were almost there, the guy saw my old toilet and asked if we could stop.He really needs a tuba, he said.I helped him into the door. As soon as he closed the door and heard his belt loop drop to the floor, I opened his briefcase, which contained a large stack of papers and a video camera.The side of the camera was open, and there was a roll of tape inside. I picked up the camera, closed the cover next to it, and the tape started playing automatically, and the small viewing screen lit up. On the telescopic screen, a tiny man took the rear tire off an old Ford. That's me, pushing the tires.It's me, prying open the locking screws on the outside and taking the tires off my car.Nothing else, no record of bird watching.After a soft bang of static electricity, my small figure appeared on the screen, shirtless, carrying a full bucket of gas, moving that bucket to the trailer, and replacing the empty ones that were used up.If Sarah is anything like me, right now she is pulling a bread knife out of a kitchen drawer.Maybe if she gave me a glass of water with a few sleeping pills in it, it might put me to sleep.Now she was watching the blade carefully, almost cross-eyed, to see how profitable it was.It's easy enough to cut up a chicken, and it's no worse to slit someone's throat.She might put a towel over my face so she can pretend I'm a loaf of bread, just cutting it, or a meatloaf, and just wait until a blood vessel is severed while the heart is still pumping blood, and there's a wave Another wave of blood gushed out.At this moment, she was putting the knife back in the drawer. Or maybe she was holding an electric cleaver, a wedding present she had received half a lifetime ago and had never used.Still in a beautifully printed box with booklets showing you how to cut a turkey...remove the ham bone...cut a leg of lamb. It didn't say how to dismember a private detective. What you have to consider is that maybe I want to be caught. Bad me, spying on poor Sarah Bournon and her family of kittens. What you have to consider is that maybe she wants to be caught.We all need a doctor to drag us out of our perfect wombs, we whine, we moan, and we thank God for kicking us out of Eden.We love our trials and admire our enemies. Just in case Sarah happened to be nearby, I yelled, "Please, don't worry yourself about this..." Because there is no lock to lock people in the toilet, I tied the whole toilet with a rope, went around it three times, tied it tightly, and tied three dead knots.Inside the toilet, the guy was whining and shitting into the hole he was sitting on.He was busy hunting mosquitoes and deerflies flying out of the dark, and he didn't hear me tying knots outside, so he took his briefcase into the trailer where I lived to have a look. In the detective's briefcase was a computer printout listing various disabilities with names and addresses next to them, some with carpal syndrome, some with a soft tissue injury somewhere in the lower back, chronic cervical spine Pain, also listing the disabled person, the insurance company, and the pain medication needed in each case. On that sheet, there is my name: Eugene Denton. In the briefcase, a rubber band held a thick stack of business cards, each stamped: LOUIS LEE ORENSE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.There is also a phone number. After I dialed the number, a cell phone in the briefcase rang. Outside, Louis Lee Orenze was yelling at me to help him open the bathroom door. If it makes Sarah Bournon feel better about my killer, I wish you would tell her the detective, he cried.Covering his face and weeping bitterly, he told me that he had a wife and three children at home, very young ones.But he was not wearing a wedding ring, and there was no photograph in his wallet. People say they feel like they're being watched, like ants crawling up your trouser legs.I will not.That afternoon, I changed the tires, checked the brakes, changed the oil, and changed the car's load from winter regulations to summer regulations.On this little video camera screen, I lift a full tank of motor oil, drag it out from under the trailer where I live, and hold it up with one arm, this utterly disabled me, poor driver and delivery man , sworn in court that I couldn't lift my hands to brush my teeth.A disabled person who can only lie down and don’t understand for the rest of his life. Now, in the videotape, his upper body is naked, and the sweat from his underarms leaves dark brown wet marks on the box of engine oil. I can act like a circus Hercules of the regiment. Living outdoors, in good weather, not eating much, getting enough sleep, this tanned muscular man is exactly what I looked like when I was nineteen. This is the best life I've ever lived and this guy I'm locked in the toilet is going to ruin it all. Most disability lawsuits are pending appeals.Those insurance guys, hoping for years of litigation, just got their hands on five minutes of clear footage of him putting a rotary backhoe into his pick-up truck.They took the video and played it in court.The result: case closed.Disability claim denied, poor bastard, he was hoping a minute ago that he would be able to lead a lot of cash every month for the rest of his life, plus medical bills, plus all the painkillers, sedation he needed Drugs and sleeping pills, to live in peace.As soon as the defense played the tape in court -- the rotary backhoe was in his pick-up truck -- he had nothing left. He was forty-five or fifty years old, and he was charged with insurance fraud.For the rest of his life, he had nothing else to do but receive minimum wage and no benefits.I don't have free time until I'm in my sixties and I'm eligible for retirement. At this moment, for Sarah Bournon, even a life of going to prison for murder is better than not being able to pay taxes, having her car confiscated, and being a homeless person pushing a cart on the street. When I was in the same situation as her, I had only a box of four bottles of strong insecticide.The trailer I'm on has a beetle nest under it.The instructions on the top of each bottle of insecticide say to shake well before opening the small bottle on the top.The insecticide will automatically emit poisonous smoke until the bottle is empty. Anything on the label can kill. That poor detective.I climbed up the ladder and threw all four bottles of insecticide down the toilet vent.Then, I pounded the spout with my hand so that nothing would leak out.I was up there, like Adolf fucking Hitler, dropping the gas and listening to the detective coughing and begging for air.First there was the sound of him gagging and choking, and then the sound of a large amount of viscous filth spitting on the floor.Just the sound alone almost made me want to throw up too.The sulphurous smell and the stink of vomit filth from the insecticides that squeaked and whitish smoke spilled from every slit and nail hole.Gasoline-smelling smoke seeped from all sides as the detective slammed on walls and doors to get out.His shoulders and arms were bruised and drained from the shoulder pads of his fine brown suit. I'm sitting here with one leg aching from the waist down.Waiting for Sarah Bournon to figure it out.I have so many things to tell her.That strong insecticide just made the detective and I sick and vomited.And what it's like to tap someone's temple with a big wrench.Also, the dozen or so blows before will only make a mess, even if you grab it with both hands and hit it down, it will just knock off the hair and bleed, and it won't really break many bones.And blood can become slippery and difficult to hold.And you have to find something to clean up and get this done. If I wasn't incapacitated before I killed Mr. Louis Lee Orenze, I was afterward.Killing is hard work, hard and messy work.Hard and messy and noisy work, because he yelled and said things that meant as little as a cow in a slaughterhouse. I was thinking that if I didn't kill my nosy Mr. Detective, the cold and long night would kill him.So would the Gadfly and the shock from his broken leg.To die is to die.This way of dying saves both of us from suffering.Don't have to suffer too much. Even if I never got caught, killing the detective ruined my enjoyment of being disabled.Now I know someone is watching, and I've seen that printed list.One day another detective will come and check me out. So, since you can't beat it, it's better to follow suit. The next correspondence school ad on TV, I called them, and they taught you how to follow a suspect, how to dump in the trash to find evidence.Within six weeks, I had a paper that said I was a private investigator.Afterwards, I also had a list of my own to investigate, to do what we called my own "follow-up notes." You have learned to be smart, leave this circle, and turn to deal with other disabled compatriots like you.In most cases, you don't have to go to court at all.Just submit your bills for hotels, car rentals, meals, etc., and you'll get a check in the mail, plus your commission. So far, I have been with Ms. Bunnon for five days, and I still have nothing.When you're filming "Follow the Watch," it's a lot like marrying your target.Went to the post office to pick up her mail, went to the library to get a new book, went to the grocery store, even though she was sitting in the trailer all day with the curtains closed and watching tv, I had to park on that gravel road , lying down, on the front seat of my rental car, to rest my head on a pillow that stood upright in the passenger front seat.Only in this way can one eye look outside, even if nothing happens. This is a marriage relationship. All afternoon, I crouched on the hillside behind her trailer, hiding in the leaves, swatting mosquitoes, watching her through the lens of my video camera.I'm waiting for my chance to press the "record" button.As soon as Sarah bent down and picked up a white gas bucket, and in five minutes she lifted a heavy bag of cat food out of her old beetle car, my job was done.All that was left was to return my rental car and catch the next flight home. Of course, the reason I'm sitting in her little hut is because I stumbled and fell.By the time she came to find me, it was after dark and the mosquitoes were more ravaged than she could deal with me—with guns or with knives.I had to call for help, and she had one arm around my waist, half-supported and half-carried this far, and she made me sit here.Take a break, she said. No one said I was creative, I told her I was bird watching.The area is famous for the red-breasted pheasant-dove, and blue-necked pheasant birds come here to mate at this time of year. She took out my video camera, manipulated the little display screen, and switched it on."Oh please, let me see," she said, as the camera clicked and buzzed, and the "playing" red light blinked and came on.She looked at the fluorescent screen, smiling, a little confused. I said to her, no, I reached for the camera and wanted to get it back, but my movements were too fast, and I told her not to watch, and I said it too loudly. And Sarah Bournon, she stepped back, arched her elbows and hands to prevent me from getting the camera, and the flickering light from the small fluorescent screen shone like candlelight on her face, and she smiled Read on. She kept watching, but her face sagged and the smile disappeared.Her cheeks drooped. It was an image of her carrying sacks of cow dung, the slippery white plastic bags filled with cow dung.Printed in black on each pack: Fifty pounds net. Her eyes were fixed on the small fluorescent screen, and all the muscles of her face were squeezed into the middle.Her eyebrows, her lips.That was the five minutes that could ruin her familiar life.My "Follow the Watch" video will beat her back to life as a blue-collar slave. It could be that her back is healed, or it could be that she was faking it after all.But what is clear is that she is not disabled.With her arms, she can perform wrestling with crocodiles to make a living. Sarah Bournon, I just want to tell you that I understand.Right now, when you're looking at the back of the rodenticide box, I just want you to know that the first week of being completely disabled and totally disabled was the best life I've ever had in my adult life one week. It was the dream of every farmer, every railroadman, and every maid who had ever spent a week off camping.On one lucky day, a train turns too fast and derails, or they step on an overturned milkshake and end up living at the end of an unknown gravel road.Happy disabled people. It might not be a good life, but it's a good enough life, with the washer and dryer on the bench next to the trailer.Everything is painted metalwork with spots of rust. If she would listen to me, I could tell Ms. Boonon where my aorta was, or where she was supposed to hit me on the head when she swung the sledgehammer. But Sarah Bournon just told me to wait.She closed the door of the shed and sat me inside with the sound of the padlock closing. Right now, she's sharpening her knives, she's picking out clothes, her casual dress and blouse, jeans and sweatshirt, looking for an outfit she'll never want to wear again. I was waiting for her, yelling at her that she should not be sad.I cried out that she was doing the right thing.That's the only best way to get it all over. The gossip detective stood behind the snack bar and told us, "Turns out, that Sarah Bournon, she's smarter than me." She didn't kill me, but she turned on the video camera and recorded my past, the murder of Louis Lee Oren.After she hid the tape, she drove me to the hospital. "This," the gossip detective told us, "is what I call a happy ending." There are stories, Mr. Whittier would say, that you tell and use, and there are other stories that drain you. Miss America was clasping her stomach with both hands, squatting on the yellow cushion of a winged armchair in a Gothic smoking room, swaying back and forth with a scarf round her shoulders.Whether her belly really got bigger, or if she was overdressed, we really don't know.She was swinging, her arms and hands were all red and swollen from the cat's claws.She said: "Have you ever heard of CMV? Cytomegalovirus? It's fatal to pregnant women, and cats can carry it." "If you're feeling sorry for the cat," the Lost Link says, "you should be." Miss America Eight swayed back and forth with her stomach in her arms, and said, "At that time either the cat died or I died..." We were all sitting in that Frankenstein room, in front of that yellow-and-red fireplace, looking at each other.Secretly record every gesture and every word in my heart, record every movement, every thing, every emotion, overshadowing everything in front. Everyone pretended not to know what he meant. Each of us wants to be the camera, not the thing being filmed. "Doesn't it look like we're all hiding something?" Lost Link said.With his long nose, bushy brows and beard, he said, "Otherwise, why would anyone follow Mr. Whittier—a man nobody knows—into this door?" On those yellow silk wallpapers, between those tall, spiky stained glass windows with fifteen-watt bulbs behind them in an eternal twilight, on those yellow wallpapers, Saint Gut-Guts made a mess of marks to record us The number of days that have passed so far.He held a piece of chalk with his remaining thumb and forefinger, and made a mark every day when the nuns of the security order turned on the lights. On the flagstone floor, Gossip Detective was gliding back and forth on the pink exercise wheel, trying to lose some more weight. Stove - broke again.The boiler didn't work, and the toilet was clogged with popcorn and a dead cat.The washer and dryer had cords pulled out and snapped all over the place. Everyone pissed in a bowl and dumped it in the sink, or just lifted their skirts and pissed in a dark corner of some big room. Wearing fairy-tale velvet clothes and wigs, we spend our days in those cold rooms with echoes in the smell of urine and sweat every day. This is exactly the court life two or three hundred years ago.Palaces and castles that look clean and elegant in today's movies.In fact—even when it's brand new, it's stinky and cold. According to Killer Chef, the kitchens in French chateaus are so far away from the Royal Dining Room that they are cold by the time the food arrives at the table.That's why the French invented their super-thick sauces, which are blanketed over food to keep them warm when served. And we, we find all the things carnivores hunt for: the bowling ball, the exercise wheel, that cat. "Our humanity is not measured by how we treat other people," says Lost Link."Our humanity is measured by how we treat animals," he said, fingering the coat of cat fur on the cuff of his coat. He looked at Sister Vigilante, and she looked at her watch. In a world where human rights are more exalted than at any other time in history...in a world where overall living standards are at their peak...in a cultural force where each individual is responsible for his own life - Lost Link says, here , the animals all quickly become the last true victims, the only slaves and prey. "Animals," said the Lost Link, "are what defines us as humans." Without animals, there would be no humans. In a world of only people, people are nothing at all... "Perhaps that's why the people trapped in the house by the heavy rain for days at the villa of Diodeti didn't kill each other," said the lost link. Because they have large herds of dogs, cats, and horses, and monkeys, making them behave like humans. Watching Miss America with red eyes and sweaty faces from a fever, Lost Link said that in the future, those protesting outside the clinic—the ones holding up protest signs with smiling babies, the ones cursing and yelling at expectant mothers People Who Spit on Women – In That Sad and Crowded World, Lost Link Says: "These people are against the few selfish women who still choose to have children..." In the world of the future, in the world outside of us, the only animals exist only in zoos and in movies.Everything but people is on the table: muscle, beef, pork, lamb, and fish. Miss America hugged her belly tightly and said, "But I need to eat." "Without animals," said the lost link, "there are still people, but without humanity." Nature looked at her engagement ring, and Mrs. Vagrant's big diamond gleamed on her thin finger.She said: "What do you say about protesting having children... that's horrible, it sounds like something from Comrade Tough." Here's the fourth ghost. "I agree," said Saint Gutless, looking at nature, "the little baby is... wonderful." Mother Nature and Holy Gutless - still a sideplot of our romance. Then the lost link raised both hands to shake off the sleeves of the coat.He pressed his two index fingers against the temples on both sides, and said, "Then I will connect with him now." Connected to Comrade Fierce.Also linked to Mr. Whittier, who said that humans need to accept the beast side of their nature.We need to somehow vent our fight-or-flight response.Those skills that we have learned over the past millennia.If we ignore our need to hurt and be hurt, if we deny that need and allow it to accumulate, then we will have war.Serial killers, school shootings. "You mean we're going to have wars," said Saint Gutless, "because the bar for us to be bored is so low?" And the Lost Link says, "The reason we have wars is because we don't admit that the bar is that low." The gossip detective filmed the Earl of Slander, and the Earl of Slander recorded the words of the missing link.All of us are looking for something real that we can tell the actors one day on set.Certain details to make our version of the truth more truthful. Miss America held up a hand under her many layers of skirts, and cast her eyes downcast to the carpet.Her fingers fumbled under the layers of skirts, her chest heaving as she breathed.She stopped. When she pulled her hand out, her fingers were shiny and wet with some kind of transparent liquid.She brought her hand up to her nose and sniffed, her brow furrowed, the skin between her blue eyes drawn together in a deep line. Poor Negative Inspector has stopped crying, oh, it's been a long, long time.From then on, she just sat there, staring at Miss America, following her from room to room.Been waiting. "You have a bacterial infection." The lost link looked at the scratches on Miss America's arm and said, "The rod-shaped bacteria infected the lymph nodes." Then he stopped and asked everyone to take notes. He said every word "The pole of the pole, the shape of the shape..." and the earl of slander wrote hastily. "If I'm not mistaken," the lost link said while smelling the air, "your water broke..." Miss Sneezy coughed with clenched fists in front of her mouth. In the silence, the sound of pen writing on paper was like thunder. The Inspector Negative stared at Miss America's hand as she moved her fingers to the front of the table. Each of us is a camera behind the camera. The Lost Link brushed off the fur from his coat cuffs, and said without raising his head, "The disease you have is commonly known as 'cat scratch fever'..." "I have a migraine," Miss America said, wiping her wet fingers on the scarf.She lifted her skirt, stood up and got out of the chair.She pulled the scarf up, high enough around her scratched neck.When Miss America straightened up, she began to walk up the stairs, saying, "I'm going to my own room." The leather cushion of the chair she was squatting on just now was black.Wet, it's water, not blood. When Miss America disappeared down the stairs, further and further down, the Negative Inspector began to follow her. The rest of us watched, and took note of this.Inspector Denial grabs her uniform with each hand, a long Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) dress with a one-piece apron over it, a red cross on her chest, and a wig with pins on her head. Wearing the nurse's cap that must have been folded up, her fingers gripping the skirt so tightly seemed to turn blue.Her chin was drooping on her breast, so her eyes were turned up, looking out from under her brows.Her mouth was so tight that the muscles at the corners of her jaw bulged.Negative Inspector walked behind Miss America with a voice softer than our pens on paper. The rest of us sat and waited for the screams to come. Need something interesting. Something brutal needs to happen. Our myth - just one less person to share the royalties. Detective Gossip collapsed on the ground, lying on his side, gasping for breath, glistening with sweat.Knickerbockers peeked out from under his long-sleeved robe, and his wig fell over his head.He said to the Lost Link, "And test your own theory." Gossip Detective said, "What did you kill to get here?"