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Monologue Mania Day # 190 by Janet S. Tiger Aug.21, 2014 Value
(for Crime)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger © all rights reserved [email protected] --------------------------------------------------
(Lights focus on a woman coming onstage, smiling, waving. She is dressed for a presentation - professional, not too flashy. She is rolling a cart of carefully organized papers)
Thank you for that lovely introduction......and please forgive the big pile of files.....but I'm going to need them to illustrate a point.....if I don't get too nervous, that is!
(She brings out one of the folders and looks at it, straightens her shoulders.) I know that, while most of you out there are Crime Scene professionals, I know there are a lot of family members here as well, so I am going to try to explain my last case....which is actually my very last case....to those of you who ....I like to think of you all as.....assistants to the pros. When I was asked to present this case, I was a little hesitant, not just because I am not fond of public speaking, but also, this was a very unusual case, one that I did not expect to have a good ending.
I suppose if you look at these murders closely, the murder is not a good ending, it is actually a very bad beginning, but my associates and I are entrusted to find if not a happy finale, one that brings justice to the story.
Because we are a cold case group, this type of finale is very rare. Unlike television, where virtually every case has the team solving the crime, we all know that success rates for these older cases are very low. I remember when I first started doing this work, the detective who got me started said, 'If we don't find the killer in the first 24 hours, the odds go down exponentially every day, until they are almost zero.' I asked him, 'Why do you keep trying then?' And his response was, 'Because almost is not an excuse. And the victims are never almost dead....they remain dead, and their families are in a kind of purgatory until something is definite.' So I was introduced to the real world of Crime Scene Investigations - a world not seen on television. When I tell people what I do, their eyes light up, until I inform them that most of what I do is beyond tedious, that the TV shows they watch cram thousands of hours of work into 48 minutes, and that I have never been threatened, nor have I had my family kidnapped to stop me from doing a case, and that the scenes where I work are very smelly most of time. I started in archeology, which has been a huge help. On a dig, there is a deep need to be meticulous, and to follow hunches, and to keep very exact records. The same in this field. Only, in archeology, everyone is dead, which means if you make a mistake, it only affects history. But with real life crimes, the dead have lives, and real families, and .........people cry.
So, with this cheery introduction, I would like to tell about how I came to be on this cold case, a case that I took on AFTER I officially retired......so, if you will, please get comfortable, and Jody, hit the lights.......as we head to the small town of Reynolds, Nebraska......where, on a blowy Sunday morning, one of the favorite inhabitants.....was found in her home.......murdered.
(She waves for the lights to go down, and they do on this scene.) (to be continued)
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Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315 www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com Member Dramatists Guild since 1983 Playwright-in-Residence Swedenborg Hall 2006-8