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September 14, 2002 book of the dead:  part two The prosecutors sought a murder conviction arguing the killer's choice of weapon was, itself, evidence of premeditation.  According to the investigation, the victim practiced an ill-defined New Age, quasi-Buddhist psychotherapy that weak-minded housewives found irresistible.  The therapist had seduced the killer's wife and charged him a pretty penny for doing so.  The defendant eschewed all but the purest forms of Eastern philosophy and religious practice.  When he discovered the therapist's modus operandi, the defendant tracked him down in San Carlos and bludgeoned him to death with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  There were other blunt objects in the deceased man's office and, if the killing had been a crime of passion, the defendant could have used any of them.  The killer was a wit and his choice of weapon proved it.  It also demonstrated malice aforethought. But the jury didn't buy it or, more likely, they convicted the defendant on the lesser charge of manslaughter because, after two weeks of trial, they had learned to loathe the victim as much the killer loathed him.  They heard testimony from other husbands whose wives had put the hole in holistic therapy.  There was evidence of the victim's phenomenal wealth, much of it stashed in mutual funds comprised of companies doing business with Red China.  Then there were the photographs of the dead body.  Rather than inflame the jury against the defendant, the photographs depicted a dead dandy.  The tweed jacket with elbow patches, the pipe, the Ram Das "classic," Be Here Now, opened to a silly, blood-spattered passage.  More than one juror looked at the defendant, nodded, and smiled.  Truth be told, if the accused had not been caught red-handed by the Mexican cleaning lady, there might have been an outright acquittal.   *...................................*...................................* The bottom-bunk convict blew out the holy candle, white smoke displacing light beams from within the perforated bucket.  Tomorrow was the prison rodeo and his cellmate, the strapping giant known as Marlboro Man, was fast asleep above him, resting up for the big event.  It wasn't just the other convicts who would be watching.  People on the outside, especially women indulging their prison gang-rape fantasies, would be watching too.  As the smoke dissipated, the slender figure on the bottom bunk, the one the other inmates took to calling "Virginia Slim," rolled on to his side facing the wall and smiled.

©  2002 by the beastmaster