Joe Wordsworth
Logician
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2004
- Posts
- 4,085
He found her on a cold night in late October, while she was walking down the beach. She wasn't much older than twenty, maybe twenty-two, and walked with none of the confidence that a young woman of that age should. Loose long sleeves and unflattering jeans, hair draped around her like curtains keeping out the light... everything about her whispered "leave me alone", and that's why he did it.
Sheriff's deputies arrested him four hours later at the Huddle House diner in Kote, Mississippi. He was phoned in as a suspicious customer by a waitress upon noticing he had a concealed weapon and there was blood on the cuff of his right sleeve. Authories responded quickly and backtracked the rest. He'd been in jail for a week before his hearing.
. . . .. ... .....
The DA's office was atwitter with hype during the gearing up phase of the trial. They had the suspect in the area, they had two witnesses that would place him in the vicinity of the attack, and they had Wexler.
Wexler had been picked up four times on counts of invasion of privacy and assault. He'd never attacked any of the women he'd filmed, but the assault charge was common and constituted damages from his film habits. Wexler liked following around women, most of the time ones he just saw on the street, and filming them. His tapes were lewd, usually with close-ups of flat tummies or cleavage as often as those angles were available.
Wexler had never come willingly to the Herschel County Sheriff's office, often he was found in his home where he lived with his mother, hiding like a rat in his hovel of a room with AV equipment to spare. He'd been arrested, but never convicted. After a decade of the county putting up with it, it was decided amongst the populace that Wexler was a pervert, but an entirely harmless one.
It was only ever tourists or out of towners that bothered reporting him, anymore.
That day, he held his grungy head high as he smoothly moved from the front door of the Sheriff's Office to the back conference room where the DA was meeting with local authorities. In his hand was the tape.
The DA, an older man by the name of Emanuel Rosa Hectora, had been prosecuting the scum of Kote and Herschel County for the better part of eight years. He was the only Hispanic most people knew that spoke English, and was regarded as a paragon of his race, generally. Though Hectora was only reasonably intelligent, but his wide shoulders and perfectly accented Latin baritone made people listen--your average citizen would have said that he was a brilliant man, and a credit to Mexicans everywhere.
His salt-and-pepper hair and deeply lined faced gave the impression of aggressiveness and stubborness--an image he liked to portray; one he felt would get him a better position in a cabinet or the legislature should the trial go well. Hecotra was a politician, and this was his ticket out of Herschel County.
Sheriff McGrady was another older man, a white-boy from back in the day. A stand-up and no-nonsense sort of redneck who spent most of his time sleeping in the cruiser or visiting the gentry of the county on polite social calls than doing any real police-work. At sixty, it was understood he wouldn't run again, but that's what the people thought at fifty--so who knew what McGrady's plans were?
Wexler had arrived for his appointment only a few minutes late, the tape tucked in his coat pocket. Hectora was the first to speak after a brief and uncomfortable silence.
"Are we ready?"
McGrady leaned over to the TV/VCR sitting on an old stand in against the far wall, the screen flashed a few times and Wexler seemed agitated over the state of their electronics. After some fiddling and button pushing, the screen went a crisp blue and McGrady held his hand out for the tape.
"Fifty bucks.", Wexler interjected, holding the tape back like a kid auctioning off his pudding cup at lunch.
The two older gentlemen looked at each other and sighed deeply. They had expected this to go smoother, as often as Wexler had run into trouble. They communicated the same thing in their aside glance... neither had thought of a back-up plan for how to get the tape, should the rat want to be paid.
The room went quiet as the three men took each other in for a moment.
Hectora was the first to speak and gave his assurances.
"If the tape has on it what you say it does, I'll personally give you fifty dollars, is that alright?", he was annoyed and impatient, but pulling off a confidant air about it.
Wexler considered for a moment, and a long moment it was. McGrady huffed to himself in the corner for a minute until Wexler nodded.
"O.k., I trust you, seen-yore", he added, smirking at Hectora. The DA had come close to putting Wexler away a few years back, but had the rug pulled out from under him when a few motions were shut down early. Wexler didn't like him, and rarely failed to make a slur when the opportunity presented itself.
McGrady snatched the tape out of his hand and ignored the few cuss-words rattling behind him as he popped the damned thing into the VCR. All three men sat in the darkened room, in silence, and watched.
The first few minutes of the tape were various female close-ups around Kote, the date on the tape was the same as the night of the "incident". Wexler's camera passed away from the fairly nice legs of Ms. Palmer (the third grade teacher at the elementary school, who happened to be eating out with her husband that night) to a frumpy girl leaving a convenience store.
The girl was hard to make out, but true to form, the invesement in quality zoom-lenses did not go unoticed as the frame shot forward quickly and a hundred-yards now looked to be maybe two feet. It was her, no mistaking it.
The camera followed from a distance (how far was difficult to tell, given the excellent zoom lens), and the girl started walking down the ramp to the lake. Wexler, obviously, found it difficult to get his angles as annoying commentary on terrain was heard coming from the camera operator.
Finally, after ten minutes of jumpy and choppy images (Wexler moving through the woods and taking a bit of a spill on a pine-cone), there she was again. She was walking up the beach on the lakeshore, the moon was nearly full and there was no mistaking it was her. Some ambient light from the parking lots made their way to the beach, and the scene was poorly lit... but lit, nonetheless.
The camera stopped when the girl stopped. It panned over to the treeline where a young man exploded into view. She screamed and ran, but he covered the distance between him and the girl quickly. He appeared to be tall and broad, dressed in jeans and a leather coat. His face was not easily made out, but as he caught up with her, and tackled her into the sand, you could see for just a moment the coat lift off of his back and a tattoo visible on his side.
It was a mark they had scene before, well-documented in the arrest record.
Wexler, obviously unsure of what to do about this situation before him, simply curled around the treeline, braced the camera, and zoomed in.
The three men watched the scene before them. Parts seemed almost a turn-on, much of it disgusted McGrady, and Hectora was mouth-agape shocked. Sounds didn't pick up very well from whatever distance Wexler had been hiding, but there were occasional screams--and there was a violent thiftiness to the whole thing.
Thirty minutes.
The whole incident took half-an-hour. The girl was unconscious, and the man redressed her and left her there. He tucked a something into the back of his waistband and made off for the parking lot where he got in a white Oldsmobile and drove across the street to the Huddle House.
The tape went black.
Wexler managed to look smug, despite his hands shaking a bit, the tape always rattled him. The things on it... he didn't know how to forget them. Hectora sat quietly, shaking his head slowly. After a few minutes of not knowing what to say, he pulled out his wallet and ripped three crisp twenties from the pocket.
"Here, and if you tell anyone about this, I'll have the Sheriff here lock you up for the rest of your goddamn' life.", he was quick and stern. Wexler took his money and almost literally ran.
The two older gentlemen sat in silence, the tape lay on its side in the center of the table.
"So, I think that's enough to convict.", the Sheriff offered politely.
Hectora looked at him and dropped his head into his hands, "Yeah, Chuck... yeah."
. . .. ... .....
Sheriff's deputies arrested him four hours later at the Huddle House diner in Kote, Mississippi. He was phoned in as a suspicious customer by a waitress upon noticing he had a concealed weapon and there was blood on the cuff of his right sleeve. Authories responded quickly and backtracked the rest. He'd been in jail for a week before his hearing.
. . . .. ... .....
The DA's office was atwitter with hype during the gearing up phase of the trial. They had the suspect in the area, they had two witnesses that would place him in the vicinity of the attack, and they had Wexler.
Wexler had been picked up four times on counts of invasion of privacy and assault. He'd never attacked any of the women he'd filmed, but the assault charge was common and constituted damages from his film habits. Wexler liked following around women, most of the time ones he just saw on the street, and filming them. His tapes were lewd, usually with close-ups of flat tummies or cleavage as often as those angles were available.
Wexler had never come willingly to the Herschel County Sheriff's office, often he was found in his home where he lived with his mother, hiding like a rat in his hovel of a room with AV equipment to spare. He'd been arrested, but never convicted. After a decade of the county putting up with it, it was decided amongst the populace that Wexler was a pervert, but an entirely harmless one.
It was only ever tourists or out of towners that bothered reporting him, anymore.
That day, he held his grungy head high as he smoothly moved from the front door of the Sheriff's Office to the back conference room where the DA was meeting with local authorities. In his hand was the tape.
The DA, an older man by the name of Emanuel Rosa Hectora, had been prosecuting the scum of Kote and Herschel County for the better part of eight years. He was the only Hispanic most people knew that spoke English, and was regarded as a paragon of his race, generally. Though Hectora was only reasonably intelligent, but his wide shoulders and perfectly accented Latin baritone made people listen--your average citizen would have said that he was a brilliant man, and a credit to Mexicans everywhere.
His salt-and-pepper hair and deeply lined faced gave the impression of aggressiveness and stubborness--an image he liked to portray; one he felt would get him a better position in a cabinet or the legislature should the trial go well. Hecotra was a politician, and this was his ticket out of Herschel County.
Sheriff McGrady was another older man, a white-boy from back in the day. A stand-up and no-nonsense sort of redneck who spent most of his time sleeping in the cruiser or visiting the gentry of the county on polite social calls than doing any real police-work. At sixty, it was understood he wouldn't run again, but that's what the people thought at fifty--so who knew what McGrady's plans were?
Wexler had arrived for his appointment only a few minutes late, the tape tucked in his coat pocket. Hectora was the first to speak after a brief and uncomfortable silence.
"Are we ready?"
McGrady leaned over to the TV/VCR sitting on an old stand in against the far wall, the screen flashed a few times and Wexler seemed agitated over the state of their electronics. After some fiddling and button pushing, the screen went a crisp blue and McGrady held his hand out for the tape.
"Fifty bucks.", Wexler interjected, holding the tape back like a kid auctioning off his pudding cup at lunch.
The two older gentlemen looked at each other and sighed deeply. They had expected this to go smoother, as often as Wexler had run into trouble. They communicated the same thing in their aside glance... neither had thought of a back-up plan for how to get the tape, should the rat want to be paid.
The room went quiet as the three men took each other in for a moment.
Hectora was the first to speak and gave his assurances.
"If the tape has on it what you say it does, I'll personally give you fifty dollars, is that alright?", he was annoyed and impatient, but pulling off a confidant air about it.
Wexler considered for a moment, and a long moment it was. McGrady huffed to himself in the corner for a minute until Wexler nodded.
"O.k., I trust you, seen-yore", he added, smirking at Hectora. The DA had come close to putting Wexler away a few years back, but had the rug pulled out from under him when a few motions were shut down early. Wexler didn't like him, and rarely failed to make a slur when the opportunity presented itself.
McGrady snatched the tape out of his hand and ignored the few cuss-words rattling behind him as he popped the damned thing into the VCR. All three men sat in the darkened room, in silence, and watched.
The first few minutes of the tape were various female close-ups around Kote, the date on the tape was the same as the night of the "incident". Wexler's camera passed away from the fairly nice legs of Ms. Palmer (the third grade teacher at the elementary school, who happened to be eating out with her husband that night) to a frumpy girl leaving a convenience store.
The girl was hard to make out, but true to form, the invesement in quality zoom-lenses did not go unoticed as the frame shot forward quickly and a hundred-yards now looked to be maybe two feet. It was her, no mistaking it.
The camera followed from a distance (how far was difficult to tell, given the excellent zoom lens), and the girl started walking down the ramp to the lake. Wexler, obviously, found it difficult to get his angles as annoying commentary on terrain was heard coming from the camera operator.
Finally, after ten minutes of jumpy and choppy images (Wexler moving through the woods and taking a bit of a spill on a pine-cone), there she was again. She was walking up the beach on the lakeshore, the moon was nearly full and there was no mistaking it was her. Some ambient light from the parking lots made their way to the beach, and the scene was poorly lit... but lit, nonetheless.
The camera stopped when the girl stopped. It panned over to the treeline where a young man exploded into view. She screamed and ran, but he covered the distance between him and the girl quickly. He appeared to be tall and broad, dressed in jeans and a leather coat. His face was not easily made out, but as he caught up with her, and tackled her into the sand, you could see for just a moment the coat lift off of his back and a tattoo visible on his side.
It was a mark they had scene before, well-documented in the arrest record.
Wexler, obviously unsure of what to do about this situation before him, simply curled around the treeline, braced the camera, and zoomed in.
The three men watched the scene before them. Parts seemed almost a turn-on, much of it disgusted McGrady, and Hectora was mouth-agape shocked. Sounds didn't pick up very well from whatever distance Wexler had been hiding, but there were occasional screams--and there was a violent thiftiness to the whole thing.
Thirty minutes.
The whole incident took half-an-hour. The girl was unconscious, and the man redressed her and left her there. He tucked a something into the back of his waistband and made off for the parking lot where he got in a white Oldsmobile and drove across the street to the Huddle House.
The tape went black.
Wexler managed to look smug, despite his hands shaking a bit, the tape always rattled him. The things on it... he didn't know how to forget them. Hectora sat quietly, shaking his head slowly. After a few minutes of not knowing what to say, he pulled out his wallet and ripped three crisp twenties from the pocket.
"Here, and if you tell anyone about this, I'll have the Sheriff here lock you up for the rest of your goddamn' life.", he was quick and stern. Wexler took his money and almost literally ran.
The two older gentlemen sat in silence, the tape lay on its side in the center of the table.
"So, I think that's enough to convict.", the Sheriff offered politely.
Hectora looked at him and dropped his head into his hands, "Yeah, Chuck... yeah."
. . .. ... .....
