Protect The Guilty

By Pablo Zaragoza

Sam Westmore killed several people before committing suicide. That, in and of itself, makes for an interesting read, but Protect the Guilty becomes a compelling story when it portrays Sam as a ghost, reliving and relating the events of his life that led to his acts of violence, hoping against the bitter realities of life to clear himself as a mindless, out-of-control human. From his invisible vantage, Sam first observes the crime scene while learning how to navigate his new form, learning from the inside out what makes people think – and tick. To relate his pre-suicide life, he spends time with two law enforcement investigators as they play a thumb drive they had retrieved from Sam's cold fist to learn the truth behind the multiple deaths. When Sam is not reliving his life, he wanders about the city, observing people and doing good deeds mysteriously. Every night, he sees the same homeless man sleeping near a historic monument. But is this an ordinary homeless man or someone far more special? What message will he eventually give Sam to make his after-life mission meaningful?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Zaragoza
• Release date: Mar 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393069720

Book preview

PROTECT THE GUILTY

Pablo Omar Zaragoza

Susan Giffin, Co-Author

To my family—my children, father, mother, brother, uncles, and

cousins—whose stories inspire me to write

Pablo Omar Zaragoza

To my parents, my brother, sister, cousins, niece, and extended

family for their support and encouragement

Susan Giffin

Table of Contents

Title Page

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY PABLO ZARAGOZA

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

This isn’t so bad. I expected at least to have fire everywhere and being dipped in boiling oil. Well, that’s what they taught us, anyway. I’m floating above what used to be me, yet I’m still here. I want to make sure that when they get here, they’ll know that I wasn’t crazy; I just had had enough. They’ll understand once they find the thumb drive. Where is the sucker? I know I had it with me when I pulled the trigger. Yeah, it’s in my left hand.

I look kind of funny down there. There’s gray soot around this neat small hole on the right side of my head. There are only a couple of tiny, tiny black burns next to the hole. I guess that’d be gunpowder that burned my skin as the bullet plowed into my skull. I don’t look too deformed, although one of my eyes seems like it wants to come out of my head. Now I see why. From the exit wound, gray-white jelly mixed with blood is spilled all over this this nice mahogony desk. ‘Doctor Fisher, where are you? You’ve got to be dead too.’

His corpse is there. I can see it stuck to the wall, hiding behind the recliner in the office. I wonder if they’ll look for semen on the fabric. There should be a ton of it. He doesn’t appear to be breathing. Let me just try to move from the roof and look.

It’s not easy trying to move. Maybe if I concentrate really hard. Why is that? It could be because my brains aren’t all inside my head. Nah. There, it just took me a little bit of thinking about it.

I did shoot him in the face. I can see the blood splattered on the wall, mixed in with pieces of his brain. The ring finger on his right hand is missing. I must have hit it when he tried to protect his face. How silly of him to do that, as if a hand could stop a bullet.

What else did I do? Let me concentrate, one foot in front of the other. Ha! Wow! I don’t walk anymore. I blur to wherever I want to go. Jeepers, how great!

I wanted to see his partner, Dr. Voltz. He was sitting at his desk, talking to someone when I walked in on him. His face was contorted. He was about to yell when I fired my .38 into him. Ah, there he is. His pale blue suit all blood-splotched, and there is a burn hole in his hundred-dollar white shirt. I can see the skin underneath. The flesh is torn in the shape of a D. That’s got to have hurt.

I hear faintly a noise coming from the phone; it’s not talk, just the bleating of a broken communication. I don’t see his ghost, just like I didn’t see Fisher’s. I guess death is personalized. I wonder how Mrs. Voltz is going to take it. Live off the fat and then find herself someone else to support her lifestyle? The cow thought herself better then the rest of us peasants.

Now I’m at the nurses’ station in the office. I feel kind of sorry about these two. They’d been nice to me every time I came here. They weighed me, took my temperature and blood pressure, always wanted to know how I was. I really wasn’t mad at them, but they knew what was going on. Fisher couldn’t have had sex in the office with people all around and not hear, for God’s sake. They cared about their stupid little jobs, their paycheck, but not about what was right. Waiting for Friday to drown themselves in booze, pills, and porn; forget about those that held the strings. It wasn’t for them to judge; the money was all that counted.

The receptionist at the front desk, she was in the same boat, knowing but not wanting to tell. I’m sure at lunchtime, back there in the break room, they all snickered about what Fisher was doing. Then there was that one time when she treated me like shit, protecting the bastard, not wanting the boss to get slapped around.

I’m the only one here. I guess death really is personalized. We are born alone, and in death, we are alone. I hear something. People. The police are here. Good! They must think I’m some sort of nut, some ISIS terrorist, some religious crazy who went ballistic on these people.

Let me get back to Fisher’s office. Funny sensation, blurring to the place I want to be and suddenly I’m there. It’s like the sensation of ants all over me or static electricity caressing me, and when it’s gone, I’m somewhere else.

They’re coming into Fisher’s office—the technicians with their plastic bags, gloves, their fingerprint kits, the luminal spray to get fluids. ‘Make sure you spray the couch.’ I’m sure there’s plenty of groin gravy there. I wonder if they could type it and find out who contributed what. That would be great. Anyway, we’ll see what happens next.

I was expecting something different—guys with pitchforks, hot coals, torture chambers, screams of agony. Well, at least not yet.

The two policemen—well, I think they’re cops—are wearing blue paper coverings on their shoes. They’re wearing white coveralls and paper caps. One of them is carrying a black case. Curious, he’s opening it up. Let me take a peek inside: brown paper bags, plastic jars, charcoal dust, brushes, and rubber gloves. There’s a plastic spray bottle and a small flashlight; guess they use that stuff for the sex crimes. They should use it on that recliner.

The photographers are here, snapping pictures left and right, documenting the crime scene. Wonder if I’ll take a good picture dead. My best side is blown away, and my eye is about to fall out. I guess not the best pic, huh.

Two guys are standing in the hallway. One, an enormous fellow who’s having a hard time breathing, is drawing the scene. He’s indicated the position of the bodies, gestimated the distance between one corpse and the other. He moves to the other office and does the same. Meticulous for a fat man, blue suit and pants with actual pennies in his loafers. His socks match and he’s wearing a pale blue tie.

The other fellow is asking questions of the technicans. He’s shorter than the big guy, muscular with long, dirty blond hair. He’s wearing a leather jacket over one of those flowery shirts, a pair of jeans, and a string tie. What a mismatched couple! Guess they’re the police equivalent to Felix and Oscar, the Odd Police Couple.

The dirty-blond cop is in the hallway. I hear him say: Nut burger, Charlie.

So there’s audio in death, but I can’t smell anything.

Looks like it. Can’t tell you much else.

He’s turning away.

‘Hey, you fat motherfucker, I’m not a nut! Hey, motherfucker, I’m not nuts. The real criminals are the other assholes, the dead ones hiding behind the couch and the other perv in the next office. I just gave them what they deserved. Don’t you leave it like that.’

I know when I concentrated, I could move. I’ve got to think hard, Sam, think hard. Make them open the left hand. ‘The left hand. Open the left hand.’

Charlie, it looks like his left hand is in a fist. Like he’s clutching something.

‘That’s it! Open up my cold stiff hand. Charlie, pry those fingers open. There you go. It can’t hurt me. I’m dead, silly. Just pull hard. That’s it. Open them up.’

Phil, guy’s got a thumb drive in his hand.

Oh, Jesus, some nut’s manifesto. Bag it up and we’ll play it down at the station. Mother-fu....

They’ll know I wasn’t crazy. They’ll open up the drive and know I wasn’t crazy.

Charlie put the thumb drive in a plastic bag. He labeled the bag with date, time, and place. The other fellow is putting paper bags on my hands. The photography session is about over. A fellow with a gurney waits in the hallway. The two technicians are lifting me out of the chair. The third fellow is putting my feet inside a black bag; now the rest of me goes into the bag. He zips me inside. Oh, Jesus, it’s dark in here. I don’t want to be in the dark. I don’t want to be here. The static feeling has come back.

I’ll open my eyes. I’m outside the bag next to the man with the gurney. He’s walking away with my corpse inside the bag, I guess to the coroner’s office. I shouldn’t think about that because by thinking about it, I may be transported there.

No, I’ll stay here for now. People are trying to get in. Fisher’s wife is in the reception area, shaking her head. She’s crying for the son of a bitch. I can’t believe it, but I guess she’s got to give them a show—the loving, dutiful wife, her husband an absolute saint. All the good work in the community, he wouldn’t harm a fly. To think he was gunned down in his office by a mad man.

‘Remember me, lady? I came to your house. I told you what was going on, and you chose to ignore me. See what happens when you ignore me.’

I’m not crazy! I’m. Not. Crazy! I AM NOT CRAZY!

The television reporters are here. There are lights, a makeup lady, and a cameraman in the background. They’re ready to go live. Nice looker, a little too thin for me, but if I were in the other world, I’d do her. The lights are going on.

Nancy Johnson, live from the offices of Doctors Voltz and Fisher where a mad man has just brutally killed six people. The murders occurred early this morning as the offices were about to open. The Lancaster community is in shock. In our peaceful rural community, how could this happen? The police have not released details about the events, but clearly, a deranged man opened fire on all those that were here. Back to our studios in Philadelphia and Monica Stewart.

I’m. Not. Crazy! I’M NOT CRAZY! I’M NOT CRAZY! I’M NOT CRAZY!!!!!!

I’ve got to make sure that they don’t label me is some kook that came in here or a druggie looking to score. People need to know why. WHY! WHY! WHY!

CHAPTER ONE

I’d been drifting. It could have been a day, a year on the streets of Lancaster. Mostly, I’d sit at the Civil War Memorial. Lancaster’s got a lot of history if you know where to look. The treaty of Lancaster between the British and the Iroquis was signed here. Haven’t seen a redcoat or a redskin since my change in existence. The Continential Congress conducted business here in 1777 in the courthouse. It burned down, but I’ve met no ghosts of the Founding Fathers floating around. Funny how I’m not floating around. I don’t have a white sheet like Casper or a deformed body like in The Walking Dead. I look like I’ve always looked.

So, I’ve been sitting here next to one of the four statues that are around a central phallus. The granite should be cold; it’s October, I think, but I’m not sure if it’s October or January. Can’t be January, there’s no snow. I can’t feel the wind. I know there’s some because I can see the fallen leaves fluttering on the sidewalk.

On top of the tower is the figure of a hooded and robed man. He’s called the Genius of Liberty. I wish he’d come down from that stupid pedestal, so I could tell him a thing or two about his genius. Like how the liberty that the founders created has been twisted and adulterated into a foul, stinky mess. Where innocent people go to jail, and the guilty make piles of money to spend on their whores, booze, and penile extensions.

I’d tell him about what liberty means to the average guy who sucks on a brew, farts, and watches football. I’d tell him that the words on the plaque, ...conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal... has become a joke. The only equalizer is money. If you have it, then you are free. But if you don’t have it, ‘Pan y Circuses’ (Bread and Circuses), like the bread and circuses Caesar gave to the multitudes, so they wouldn’t feel the boot on their neck; the false hope Hitler gave Germany; the chicken in every pot that politicians say they’ll give to the masses for their votes, all to take their collective eyes away from the problems that plague the world. We are simple. Beast, feed me, entertain me, and I will be satisfied.

The people on the street look like they’re going to work. The sun has started to rise in the East. I can hear the buzz of their conversations.

Harry’s a pig. He pulled out his...

Mary was asking, begging me to...

Steve, I won’t sell at that price. No, I won’t...

The banalities of the consumer society that makes nothing and produces nothing, except flatulence, urine, and shit. I grew up different, and as an adult, I chose this world. Me and