Any avid reader of fictional crime capers knows that half the thrill of the read is picking up the clues and places them in a pattern alongside the sleuth. We are there with Watson, with Marple, with Poirot, with Strike, with Plum. We thrill to see them grapple with evidence, while being safe and cozy in our retreat. We may gasp at the brutality, but we do not feel the knives thrusting in our gizzards.
Murder upsets our orderly days. Corpses are hard to dispose of, both physically and mentally. The resolution of the murder, the confession of the guilty, the restorative justice, all puts us at our ease. "Aha," we think, as our heartbeats slow, the saliva flows redux, "a fitting end." And now to bed.
But in reality, murder is not so easily resolved. Even when murder will out, there is no confession from the guilty party, no restorative justice. No acknowledgment of the betrayal of the social compact.
And so it was with poor Sylvia. She ran out of money. The aide handled her roughly. She received little physical/occuptional therapy afterward. She got a full-time aide, who mentally tormented her. She tried to get along with her, using her grace and social skills. To no avail. More and more things got broken in her. Instead of looking at what was going on, they gave her Remeron "for appetite." Which made her delirious and sick. The full-time aide's care left her with three pressure sores. That full-time aide left (I hope she is rotting in jail, or dead of an OD). Another came, with less brutality and less care. The room begins to stink of urine. The aide doesn't even clean up after herself (I hope they had to do a gut rehab of the room--the smell of human urine, like cat urine, is not easily dissipated) Then, sepsis. And she is dying. Morphine. Good-bye and goodnight Sylvia. And the little mite she had left goes to her medical debts.
How is this not a conspiracy? The caretakers never answered any of my e-mails. They never acknowledged my grief. They didn't help her in her final months. They all make the sad little face and tell me how much they loved my mother.
Loved. That's what every abusive parent says. That's what Joel Steinberg said of his daughter, whom he killed nonetheless.
Child killers get sent to jail. They are disbarred. Elder killers go on to their next case.
J-accuse--the medical community. Doctors used to be smart and curious. Now they just keep their eyes on the Eye-Pad and don't look up, like horses with blinders on. Thinking is dangerous.