American Engineering

Disclaimer

This story as it evolves reflects the reality we in America live with. Nothing more nothing less.

American Engineering

On a warm spring Tuesday night, the call came in at twenty-three twenty-two to the nine-one-one station. The anonymous caller said that a man was being attacked in the five thousand block of Morgan. The screen displayed an unknown number which led the receiver to believe the call was from an unlisted cellphone. Via computer while still on the phone the emergency service personnel dispatched the city police.

Every call into the nine-one-one service is automatically recorded. If the person handling the call expects something is amiss, they flag it. Because of the time of night, the refusal of the caller to identify themselves, and the rushing sound in the person's voice it was tagged with the assigned number of the pending case.

The two police cars arrived within seconds of each other to find the bleeding beat-up victim laying half on the street sidewalk and half on some property owners' front lawn. Before getting out of their cars they called for the first responders. The silence because of the time of night was detaching as it added a sense of eeriness to the darkness of the cloudy night.

While one officer began securing the crime scene the other went over and checked the man out to see if he was still breathing. The officer, not wanting to affect the crime scene wet the side of his finger and placed it beneath the man's nose. His whole face and forehead were covered in flowing blood which was forming a puddle underneath him.

At first look, it appeared that someone had deliberately hit the man on the temple area of his head repeatedly. Instantly he could feel the warmth of the air coming from the man's nose, so they knew that he was still living. Thankfully if they worked fast enough perhaps there was enough time to keep him alive. The ambulance hopefully would be transferring a live one instead of a dead body. Before proceeding he stopped putting on some surgeon's gloves to protect any evidence found from being contaminated.

"The way he was attacked makes it clear that whoever was trying to rob him could have killed him. It had to be a frontal assault. If he lives perhaps, he can identify the person," Micah Joel the ten-year veteran said. "It's a wonder he is still breathing. No wonder he is not conscious."

By the look at him, their first impression was that he was in his early fifties. He was of average build, had blue eyes, a touch of gray in his black hair, yet it was clear by the way he was dressed that the man took pride in who and what he was. He was not a big man only about five foot nine. They estimated his weight to be about one-eighty.

Beside him lay a bag from the local Target drug store that was five blocks away that was open twenty-four hours. Inside were a couple of over-the-counter drugs bought for someone who suffers from a lot of pain along with the sale receipt. Micah recognized that they were the strongest that could be bought without a prescription.

"My wife keeps a supply of these around for when she has migraines," Micah said as he handed it to the other officer so he could bag it up as evidence.

The officer, after putting on gloves began to search out for identification. Figuring it was a snatch and grab that had gone terribly wrong he figured that his wallet would be gone. The officer was surprised to find his wallet sitting inside the upper inside pocket in the jacket the man was wearing.

"This was not a robbery," Micah said aloud. "Something else is going on."

Flipping it open the officer learned that he had over two hundred dollars in cash, three credit cards, his medical cards, and a driver's license. Even in a mugging at least the cash would be gone. It instantly became clear that this was not a robbery but a deliberate attempt to kill that had gone wrong.

"Who is he," Jose King the junior officer asked?

"Seth Peter Mathews from Everett Washington age forty-five," Micah responded. "I wonder what he is doing down here. Have dispatch do a check to see if any Mathews are living near this area and find out if their related."

As Jose went to the car with the man's wallet, he was assigned to the first responders pulled up, and took over. The first thing the medics did was attach an intravenous blood substitute into his arm to make sure any blood loss was made up for. The key for them at this moment was keeping the victim alive. After bandaging up his head as much as they could they prepared him for transport.

Not knowing the extent of the man's injuries under orders of the doctor they were in contact with, they slid a wooden board under his body before strapping him in. it took the two medics and two firemen to load him into the ambulance.

By the medic's description of the victim's seeable injuries into the radio, all knew instantly that this was not an accidental mugging. The medic believed that the victim had been attacked by at least two people using sections of two by fours because they could see remnants of the wood in his head. One had hit him from the front the other from behind.

Jose finally getting a clear picture of the injured man had to turn away and depart. It was the first time since becoming a police officer that he saw such a brutal assault. Walking across the street so he did not contaminate the crime scene he bent over and brought up the contents in his stomach.

After the first responders had left the two officers looked over the area. Where he was hit was just out of the reach of the light from the streetlight and about twenty meters away from the start of the reach of the next one.

The older houses in the area had been built in the nineteen fifties so they had large lots with some very mature trees making it easy for one to hide in plain sight. With the darkness of the area, anyone could be lurking in the shadows.

Using their flashlights, they searched the surrounding area in the darkness for what they could find. They wondered if the attacker had been stupid enough to leave the weapon they had used behind. They did not find much but behind a huge blue spruce tree, they found three cigarette butts making them wonder if they had been smoked by someone who was waiting.

They bagged it because it could provide the detective yet to be assigned the needed DNA evidence to a case that to this point had little of anything.

The area where Mr. Mathews was attacked was going through a major change. As the older generation died off a new younger generation had moved in. Since the effect of the Covid virus everything had become magnified. With it, the morals and values of the area were going through a big change.

The area was now known to be occupied for the most part by those who were part of the alternate lifestyle community so the first question that came to mind was the victim gay and was this a hate crime caused by the changing populations lifestyle?

With the influx of their way of thinking and approaching things, crime had picked up in the area. It was well known that the local old-timers felt they were being pressured to move out as their kind was no longer welcome in the area.

The way the alternate lifestyle community openly talked about their sexuality and their desires to sexually make somebody their latest bitch made the local old-timers feel extremely uncomfortable. The two polar opposites of morals, principles, and standards were conflicting with each other and creating an uneasy tension in the area.

A crew of wheeler-dealers were regularly canvassing the area trying to buy the older homes to remodel and sell to this new generation who apparently were free and easy with their money. The question had to ask could this crime be related to that?

After clearing the crime scene, the two officers returned to the senior officer's car and began writing up a report on what they had found. While calling for first responders Jose had asked dispatch to find out what they could about the victim.

Dispatch called them. "Seth Peter Mathews is an author. He writes primary Christian fiction books with a romantic twist. He is known to be conservative in nature with some liberal views if they don't conflict with his beliefs. His books are quite successful as the publisher's bio on him says each new release sells over half a million."

"He's married, has three adult children aged twenty-one, twenty, and nineteen. Has three brothers and two sisters who all live in the area. He is down here as the chief executor for his parent's estate who passed away recently both were taken because of complications caused by the virus," the dispatcher explained. "He and his wife are staying at his parents' house in the six thousand block of Morgan while he worked things out to the satisfaction of the rest of the family."

"Have the family been informed," Micah asked.

"His older brother has gone to pick up Seth's wife and then they will be headed over to St. Mary's hospital where they asked for him to be transported too," the dispatcher explained.

Both of the police officers knew instantly that St. Mary's was run by the Catholic church. Based on what they now knew the family's request made sense.

"Best call the Detective on call," Jose said to dispatch. "We both now strongly believe that this is looking more and more like an attempted murder than a mugging. Inform us how long it will take him to get in so we can meet him at the station to inform him what we know."

As soon as dispatched acknowledged their request the radio went silent.

"The question that has to be addressed," Micah said to Jose, "Did someone go after him because of his Christian views concerning the Lbgtq's and their lifestyle? If they did, can it be considered as a hate crime?"

"That's a question we will have to raise with the detective," Jose responded. "We need to know how long he has been here and what kind of relationships he had formed while he was here."

Micah thought about what his co-worker had said before responding, "it may go further back then here we need to know about his life on the west coast and his long-term relationship with his wife and family."

Why do you think that?" Jose asked.

"They apparently were waiting for him, which makes it clear it was not a random hit," Micah replied. "He went to get the medicine that someone needed. The person or persons who were waiting for him had to know that Mr. Mathews would be coming back this way."

That was when Jose clued in on the fact that it was his wife that was most likely behind it. The problem was how do they prove it. He wondered if Seth Mathews was like his father. A die-hard old-fashioned Christian who would not bend an inch.

"Micah when I came out to my father," Jose explained. "He took it very hard because of his Christian views. He told me that since I was an adult, that I had the right to live my life as I saw fit, but that he would never be able to accept it or approve of it. He does not believe that any man has the right or the authority to contradict what the bible says."

"Has his view changed over these last few years," Micah asked?

"Only in the fact he does not want to know anything about my personal life and what is going on in it," Jose said. "As far as he's concerned it's none of his business. When my partner and I go to visit he treats him with respect and politeness, but we all know that he will never be part of the family. He wouldn't even attend our wedding."

"How does Manuel think about the whole situation," Micah asked?

"He feels insulted, put down, and is quite upset that my dad won't accept him," Jose said. "He sees my dad as an old fool who has no clue about anything. Manuel would love nothing more than to grab his shirt and shake him until he got some common sense into my father's thick head."

"Sounds like your partner has the problem and not your father," Micah replied. "Your father respects your partner for who and what he is, not for his and your lifestyle, while your partner believes it's your father religious believes that stops him from getting total acceptance."

"My father has tolerance, whereas my partner doesn't," Jose said in surprise. "I never saw it. We, I mean the LBGTQ community demand equality but as a group, but in general when were in a group we don't want to give it in return."

"That's another avenue that will have to be explored," Micah said. "Was Seth Mathew attacked in part because of the way he related to the alternate lifestyle group? Both your father and the victim grew up in a time where they were allowed to live their lives with their beliefs. In today's society, most want your believes hidden unless they're woke."

"They are part of the generation that still believes the Old Testament has value," Micah explained. "They believe that their soul was with God before they were born because God declared he knew them before they born. That there are two sexes, and anything other is a creation of the mental and emotional thinking of those who claim their something else."

Just at that moment, the dispatcher called for them via the radio to inform them that Detective Amos Inman was there waiting for them.

Both of them saw the irony. Detective Inman nicked named Billy was known to be a detailed man, who looked and based his cases on facts and not interpretations. He was known to be an African American who had no room for the prejudices of others. Throughout his life, he had earned the right to be respected by all nationalities and was.

A few years back some religious zealots had decided they wanted to disrespect the military funeral of a local boy who had died in service by protesting at it. The young man had escaped Vietnam with his parents and when he had grown up had joined the marines. He single-handedly had made the protest a joke by having the newspaper falsely post the day of service. They all ended up being at the graveyard a day late and were laughed out of the community.

Seth returned to his car and followed Micah back to the station pondering over their last conversation. What he had just learned was forcing him to reevaluate his partner and his father's relationship.

He owed his father a big apology because being at the center of all of it he had never seen the whole situation in its reality. His problem was now in trying to get his partner Manuel to see it from the other side. With his new-age mentality that might be an impossibility.

It took them about two hours to explain their thoughts and the reasons behind them to the detective. But it was the detective that brought up something that they never would have considered.

"Your thinking is top-notch," the detective said, "both your directions concerning the case might be right on the money. What we have is an educated man, who has a successful career, has money, and a lifestyle that goes with it. Even the color of his skin may be working against him. Many of the under thirty community because they view themselves as being superior to all others will automatically see him because of the life he leads as being a white racist."

"The 'Truth' of the society we now live in is whatever the elite and the mass media will allow you to hear and see. They control about eighty percent of what we hear. Big tech, mass media, and most ways that we humans use to communicate for the most part are controlled by them. They censor anything that goes against or tries to change their 'agenda," Detective Ingman said. "The two of you and I must always think and draw out the facts using a critic's eye. Remember always to let the facts shout out because it's what's lays out the story."

"The best lesson I learned since becoming a detective," Detective Inman said. "Is that I had to stop explaining myself to people who only understand from their level of perception. Sometimes the worst cases are solved by learning to walk in their shoes."

The silence in the room was frightening. All three lived daily with the fact because they wore the blue, they were marked by those who had to make an agenda out of everything. The question had to be asked was Seth Mathews the latest victim because of the woke community?

While waiting for the officers to return from being out in the field the detective had contacted the Everett police department in Washington State to ask them to do a detailed background check on the victim and his family. Asking them to find what was not on Google or Facebook.

"I have to say that this latest case is going to require your assistance Jose," the detective said. "I want to make sure that any prejudices I might have been are not being reflected in what I will be seeing. I believe your familiarity with the culture will allow you to notice things that I would never perceive. Micah, I also will be asking the desk sergeant to assign you to assist me when needed."

"Just before your shift ends go back to the crime scene to check and recheck it in the daylight," Detective Inman said. "Search both sides of the street at least to the end of the block. Maybe the attackers dropped something in their getaway. The odds are that they lived locally and may have walked to that location. I suggest you change out of your uniforms and use your personal cars while you are investigating the area. Less chance of those in the know will hear about what you're doing."

In parting thoughts, Detective Inman added, "It might be as simple as one of the wheeler-dealers took him out because he refused to sell the place for redevelopment. After all, it has been rumored that most of the six thousand block of Morgan has been bought so it can be rezoned to allow a greater density of population. The Mathews house might be the parcel of land that is holding up the whole project. Regardless of the reason rest assured whatever was done was motivated by someone's hate or expectations for something."

********

Until their report came in, Detective Inman would have to see what he could learn from discussions with Seth's family at this end. He left the station and headed over to St. Mary's emergency to see what he could learn.

Ivy Mathews and her husband's older brother Steven were waiting for the brain scan to be done. Seth already had his hair cut off and his head shaven so they could put the eighty-four stitches into his head. The wood splinters had been collected and bagged for evidence. Not only was his face swollen but he had two black eyes that would take a week or two before they would disappear.

Ex-rays had proven that the brain skull had been cracked but had not been shattered. How they had failed in their attempt to kill him had marveled the doctors. Looking at the x-rays the detective had to agree with their thoughts. What concerned them now was the possibility that there was pressure on the brain because of internal bleeding.

The Detective, after arriving at the emergency service had gone into the non-patient area to talk briefly to the on-staff nurses at the center desk. The nurses pointed out to him who was there as part of the Mathews family entourage.

He took a few minutes to stand and observe the communication and interaction between the four people he would soon be meeting through the one-way mirror. It allowed him to discern who of them was more dominant and which were submissive. Picking up the little things concerning a person gave the detective an advantage when communicating with them the first few times. The nurses also updated him on Seth's current status.

Most believed that he would live but they had no clue what kind of life he would have because of an unknown internal brain injury. Until the blood and swelling in his brain was rescinded nothing could be determined. With the damage done to the victim, the doctors believed there could be many.

The fact that the nurses felt Seth Mathews' family was acting with more indifference than concern had been brought out and discussed thoroughly. It gave the detective insights into the family that would help him in the investigation.