Police Bureaucracy

            On Thursday morning I didn’t notice any problem from the hit and run that had knocked me off my bike the night before until I put weight on my knee for some yoga poses. My flexibility was fine but I noticed that the skin is broken just below the knee. During guitar practice I discovered another small injury. My left thumb was aching as I formed chords and moved up and down the neck, so I must have sprained it when I fell over and caught myself with my left hand. The mobility is fine though so I don’t think it’s a major injury.

            Around midday I called up the campus police to inquire if there are closed circuit cameras on King’s College Circle. The person that answered the phone said she had no idea. I asked, “Haven’t the campus police ever had to review camera footage?” She tiredly demanded to know what this was about.  I told her that I’d been the victim of a hit and run the night before on King’s College Circle. She informed me that I’d have to email staff Sergeant Ryan Dow, so I did that. That afternoon I received a return email from someone named Monique Altmann who said there are no CCTV cameras on King’s College Circle but that I should file a report. It didn’t make any sense for me to get involved with cop bureaucracy if there was no way for them to identify the driver of the car that clipped me. I also doubted that making an official complaint would help cause closed circuit cameras to be installed, since the university is already planning to turn the entire circle into a pedestrian and bicycle pathway and put all the cars underground.

            That night I watched an Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay that was more interesting than usual because of the twisted and farcical plot written by short detective fiction writer, Jack Ritchie. A psychology professor named James Parkerson is doing a study to find out if more husbands and wives are capable of killing each other if they could easily find someone else to do it for them. He thinks it would be valuable to know when the mind is just beginning to contemplate the violence. No textbook tells you accurately. His research asks, “Is it important to know if there is a common denominator for the need to murder? Do we learn it on the couches of psychiatric consultation? No, we learn it in the crucible of experience, in the moment of passionate need, in the terrible moment of truth when all things are revealed as they happen. For his experiment he poses as a hit man for married people and puts an ad in the paper offering a “final solution” to marital problems. The first person that contacts him has asked him to go to a certain bar and sit untying and retying his shoelaces until he makes contact. The person that approaches him, Mr Bingham is middle aged and looks like a banker. He takes him to talk in his car and reveals that he knows Parkerson is a psychology professor. He also unveils the fact that he is actually a hitman and he is willing to offer Parkerson $500 for every client that makes contact with and needs someone to murder their spouse. He assures Parkerson that the research possibilities would provide him with a veritable Kinsey report of homicide. Parkerson is disgusted by the idea so Bingham drops him off where he met him, but gives him his card in case he changes his mind.

Because of Parkerson’s dedication to his scientific interests he is neglectful of his wife, Doris, who, because of that neglect is having an affair. Her lover, Robert has fallen in love with her but she is still in love with her husband and so she will not leave him. Robert however is convinced that if he can get rid of her husband then she will want to marry him and so he answers the ad that offers the ultimate solution. They meet at the New York Stock Exchange. Robert does not realize that the person he is trying engage to kill Doris’s husband is in fact Doris’s husband. When Robert describes and names Doris, who only gave a different last name to her lover, Parkerson realizes that his wife is cheating on him. He goes to see Bingham to employ him in killing Robert, but Bingham tells him that he is too personally involved. Bingham does not want to take on jobs from people that don’t want to just eliminate someone else for their own happiness but rather out of revenge. He apologizes but tells Parkerson that he can’t work with him because he is too erratic. Bingham asks, “Could you survive the knowledge that you had done it?” “Of course!” “Then you kill him.” Bingham advises him that he must be absolutely sure that this man is the sole cause of his misery in order to know that his death will make him happy again. Bingham adds, “If I am ever captured it won’t be a personal attack by the police, but the failure of a business enterprise.”

Parkerson goes to meet Robert again and looks at the detailed description of Doris he’d asked Robert to compile. Upon reading it he realizes that Doris is the dominant party in their relationship. Parkerson goes back to Bingham and Bingham sees that Parkerson’s hand is steady and his voice has lost that petulant rage. Parkerson says, “Kill my wife before I do.”

Bingham goes to Parkerson’s house when Doris is alone under the pretence of being an interior decorator that was hired to renovate a soundproof room in the house. She tells him that he wanted a study and she wanted a family room but the room became a place for her husband to keep away from her. They go into the room and she tells him that the acoustical tiles have to go. She sees him putting on a pair of leather gloves. He comes towards her with his gloved hands ready to clutch her throat. She screams and he grabs her face but she bites his hand through the leather and then swings a heavy overhanging lamp into his head. He falls out of the room and then she locks herself inside. A secret door opens in the room and Parkerson walks in. He tells her that he came back to stop it. She says, “You wanted to kill me!” and runs out of the room. Parkerson goes after her and pulls her down to the floor just as a bullet hits the wall behind where she had stood. They realize that Bingham’s aim now is to kill both of them so there are no witnesses. Parkerson tells her that if they don’t crawl along the floor in separate directions Bingham could more easily kill both of them. Doris realizes that if one of them is killed then they will have sacrificed their life for the other, and that’s love. Parkerson manages to make it to the light switch to shut it off and then tells Doris to head for the sound proof room. Bingham enters the house. Then Robert enters the house. While Robert is sneaking in the dark, Bingham grabs him from behind a curtain and they struggle. Robert shoots and kills Bingham. Robert thinks that he has just killed Doris’s husband. Doris demands of Robert what he’s doing there. He explains that Parkerson had told him to come and get Doris before Parkerson killed Doris’s husband. She turns to James and asks, “You were going to kill yourself?” Robert exclaims, “He’s your husband?” Parkerson tells Robert that he’d planned to have him murdered and trap Bingham, but he couldn’t do it, even though he knew Doris wanted to kill him. Doris assures him that she hadn’t known anything about it. She convinces Robert to give her the gun because then he can leave and she’ll tell the police that James killed Bingham and that she shot James after he put the gun down. Robert asks, “You love me?” Doris answers, “How can I prove it unless I risk my life for you?” Parkerson says, “Give me the gun, I’ll kill myself.” Robert gives Doris the gun. She says, “You fool!” Parkerson says, “Because I loved you!” Robert says, “This is no time for quarrels! Now shoot him and then call me the moment the police get here!” He begins to leave. Doris points the gun at Robert and orders him to come back. “How dare you try to kill my husband!” “I thought you loved me!” “If I want my husband killed I’ll kill him myself!” She and James decide they will call the police and tell them the truth. That Robert broke into their house and killed Bingham. Robert exclaims, “But you were mad about me!” Doris tells him, “You don’t understand about husbands and wives quarrelling. You don’t understand about wives. The happiness I had with you I had with him, but the happiness I have with him I could never have with you.”