Crime Artist

“Remember the gentlemen who called the station saying he knew who dropped it.”  “Look close,” Shirk asked.  “It was Doobie if no other.”  They enhanced the footage to make sure.  D.T. Shirk pointed out Doobie listening to the Chief sigh.  “I knew it.”

That’s the same guy who turned Paul in. So unexpected, I guess that’s what the feds are, ‘unexpected’.  You never know, as soon as you think you can relax, Boom!  “They gotcha!”

But Doobie had it coming sooner or later.  Just look at the odds.  Remember one of the doctors sounding so surprised when she said, “I’d never thought it would turn out like this.”  “They’d arrest Doobie of all people.”  Apparently, she didn’t know what was going on.

In spite of everything, according to United States Law, Doobie still owned the rights to Timeless since he patented it well before getting convicted.  All I had to do was convince them that I had no knowledge of intent.

By now, they knew we were friends and knew his intent behind collecting the ransom.  But before Doobie was to blow up like he did, “I mean with Timeless and all, he could wind up being one of the most powerful men in the world.”  His potential was a mystery.

Yeah, he stuck by me.  I’ll stick by him even if it does look like I took the fall for him years ago.  That’s what the Fed’s kept pressing.  But they didn’t know Doobie like I did.  They didn’t, really.  “Providing we get rid of the files,” Paul went on saying. 

Funny, Bent owns a good piece of that property, karma, revenge, whatever you want to call it.  “Take it how you want.”  “Things are getting hard; we have to eat and it’s getting cold out there.”  “I had no muscle for, vengeance or greed.”  “I don’t know about Doobie.” 

“It was like a fight.”  I kind of figured if we won then, in other words, got our way, then none of this would have happened.  “Darn it!”  If we didn’t need the money, then I would never have gone to jail.  But through all of that, our records did hit the system.

We nearly lost our privacy.  There are A.D.T. systems installed in cars now with automatic tracking devices.  The discovery of D.N.A., “If some of this were around then, we would really be in a jam,” Paul spoke out in a sarcastic rage.

Feeling uneasy about taking the fall for Doobie the first time because it was Doobie who broke into the office and burned their files 29 years ago even though Paul went to jail for it, he says he just couldn’t let them do to Doobie what they did, not after what happened in school.  This might affect his sense of perception forever, and who knows, it might obscure his judgment.  “Imagine not being able to say no, not knowing whether someone is hurting you until it’s too late.”  “It’ll mess with his sense of perception.”

Do you know what happened?  No, he had a good reason for doing what he did years ago.  The rest call it coincidence, karma one.  Who would ever have thought Bent’s wife of all people would be driving down the highway that dark cold night.  If I told the story, who would believe me.  It almost defies the laws of physics.

I remember pleading with the District Attorney, begging them to drop the charges saying it was all me.  They were not buying it.  Then I even suggested that if they let Doobie go, I’d convince him to give up the rights to Timeless, which would give them full rights to it.  But if the request was denied and if they didn’t go along with the whole project, everything would be destroyed.  In other words, let Doobie go and there would be no crime or mental illness ever again.  Sadly, the proposition was denied.

In so many ways, I know we’d all like to think we’re being governed by a group of God fearing people, honestly, we are not.  Don’t get me wrong.  Now I know what Doobie and I did was wrong.  We should have gotten in trouble for it.  But if you read this carefully, none of this would be if we didn’t do what we did years ago.

If what happened to us didn’t happen.  Either do this or sit back and be poor pushovers until we die.  It was the last day of the week and Doobie was well into his twenty-five year sentence.  Two months had gone by.  I was his first visit.

(The Confession:)

I can remember hearing the guard’s keys jingle as he pulled open that heavy black iron door.  I walked in.  He stared at