Micheal Morales looked around the jury room that had been provided by the court. As he asked if anyone wanted to be the jury foreman, all eleven of the other people in the room shook their heads. “I’ll do it, then.” It was as if fate had smiled on Micheal for the first time in his life.
Micheal Morales had moved to this small ranching community outside of Houston when he’d turned eighteen. He had been raised in foster care after his mother passed away. His father was so distraught that he began to increase his habit of taking recreational drugs to the point of feeling numb. When his money ran out, Micheal’s father turned to a life of crime to support his habit. He as in and out of jail so much that the state decided that Micheal would be better off in foster care. That’s where he met his foster brother, Tellez Torres. Tellez was a few years older than Micheal, so he took the part of a big brother. Tellez had always wanted a sibling, but his parents had been killed in a car wreck when he was five. Tellez had tried desperately to save both of his parents before the EMTs arrived, but he was only five and not well-versed in life-saving procedures. However, the EMTs were impressed with his efforts. As a result, Tellez set his sights on becoming a paramedic. He took a slight detour, though, when he met and fell in love with a girl who had her sights set on being a nurse. That relationship ended when they were both in their second semester of nursing school. By that time, Tellez had set his sights on being a nurse.
Tellez met an instructor who was fifteen years his senior in nursing school. She encouraged him to use his kind heart to be a palliative care nurse. When he graduated, the instructor was going through a divorce, and she volunteered to help Tellez study for his NCLEX exam and find a job. He followed her to her hometown where she had moved after the divorce was finalized, and that led to a relationship. Six months into the relationship, Tellez decided to follow his heart and buy an engagement ring. To cover the cost of the ring, a wedding ceremony and a decent honeymoon, Tellez decided that he needed a roommate. That would defray some of his living costs so he could save some money. His foster brother had just turned eighteen and needed a place to stay since his father had never relinquished his parental rights and the state would no longer pay his foster parents to feed, house, and clothe him. Consequently, Tellez asked Micheal to move in with him. After a few months, Micheal found a job that paid a living wage. He worked hard and earned a substantial raise. After two years, Tellez still hadn’t worked up the nerve to give the engagement ring to his intended.
Tellez felt comfortable discussing his work life, in generalizations, with his roommate. Micheal was more interested in how the family of the people that Tellez stayed with were paying for a nurse to be with a dying loved one than the job his foster brother was doing though. He was intrigued at the process that some families had to go through to get the insurance company to pay for a continuous care nurse. That led him to become interested in becoming a lawyer to help such people, so leading a jury would be a good way to learn the ins and outs of the trade, he reasoned.
“Okay, we’ve heard the evidence. Do we think that Joaquin is guilty of murder? Yes or no?”
“It’s not that simple,” Janice Plumley objected. “We’re deciding a man’s fate on circumstantial evidence-“
“And the longer this drags out, the longer you get to ogle a big, handsome stud with arms like tree trunks,” remarked Jeremy Leone. He was anxious to get back to his farm and ranch work. The paltry sum of money he was collecting for being on the jury wouldn’t pay his rather large bank loan, and he didn’t trust his hands to do the ranch work properly if he wasn’t overseeing them.
“You just don’t like Joaquin, because you think that he also killed his abuelo,” Janice objected.
“Look, Alfredo was in a lot of pain when I went to see him. He was a tough man, but I could see the pain in his face. I know that boot prints from boots that would have fit Joaquin were in both houses, but the d.a. had no reason to pursue that case, because he wasn’t running for re-election like he is now. If an autopsy had been done, it might have cleared or convicted Joaquin. The poor kid was so strung out from the speed he was taking to try to go to class and practice and play football at the J.C. that it was pathetic. He had to run the ranch when his abuelo got sick, in addition to going to class and playing football. And, that shoulder injury he had was what got him hooked on narcotics, I’m sure. Poor Joaquin…”
Jeremy’s voice trailed off and he began to think, “Look, even if Joaquin did kill his abuelo and his father figure, Jim Payne, it was mercy, not murder in both cases if you ask me. The poor kid just didn’t want someone else to suffer the way he was suffering with all that was going on in his life. I don’t think that a man should be put in prison for life for trying to relieve someone of his pain. I vote not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.”
“That’s not an option. It’s only guilty or not guilty-“ Micheal began, but a small man in the back of the room cut him off.
“I’m hungry. Isn’t The State supposed to provide us with a meal?” Fred Gallo asked.
“A man’s life is at stake, and all you can think about is food?!” Janice asked, angrily.
“I think better on a full stomach,” Fred objected.
Micheal asked the bailiff to order three pizzas. As they ate, the jurists talked. Each had an opinion, and the jury seemed to be split on the decision before Jeremy spoke again. “Y’all can vote as you wish, but, if it were me in Jim Payne’s position, I’d hope that someone would do what Joaquin did. Life doesn’t stop just because you’re dying or incapacitated, and he was never gonna come out of that coma, anyway, according to Doc. Stewart. So, again, I vote not guilty.”
As the jurist finished their pizzas and washed their hands, they discussed the case. Micheal sensed that it was time to ask for a verdict. “How does everyone vote?”
As he went around the room asking for votes, everyone voted “not guilty” except Fred. He wasn’t sure that his blood sugar was at an adequate level to make a rational decision. One look from Jeremy, though, quickly changed his mind. He took a hard candy out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. He thought for a moment, and then said, “Not guilty.”
Micheal voted with the other jurists and Joaquin was released. Micheal was glad that the verdict had only taken a few hours to reach, because he had things to do. As he drove to the local feed store, he thought about what his roommate had said about his job. Tellez said that he could tell when someone was going to die, and when they were in severe pain and weren’t close enough to death to relieve it. He relayed how two of his clients, Jim Payne and Alfredo Salazar, were in severe pain. Tellez said that, if it were legal, he would have put each man out of his pain with an overdose, because it hurt him to see anyone suffer so much after he’d watched his parents die. Micheal felt for his big brother figure.
“One thing I don’t understand, though, Tellez,” Micheal began. “How do you get into the house if the night nurse has left and the family is asleep? You say that they’re usually so exhausted that they never even hear the doorbell or a knock on the door.”
“When they know that I’m coming, they just leave the front door unlocked. I can usually be at the house just after the night nurse leaves, so they aren’t vulnerable for long. Most burglars are too lazy to get up early enough to do any damage at that time of day anyway.” Micheal turned his car off and went inside the feed store.
“I need to return these boots. I didn’t have my contacts in when I bought them, so I bought the wrong size. I wear a size eleven, not a thirteen extra wide! They’ve only been worn a couple of times, so can I get my money back, even though I don’t have the receipt and it’s been a couple of years since I bought them?”
“I can give you store credit, that’s all. Pick out some elevens that you like, and we’ll just call it an even swap,” the proprietor said. Micheal did as he was asked, because he needed to be home before Tellez was, and he had one more stop to make. That stop was a two-hour drive away, in Houston.
Micheal drove to the medical supply store and picked up a three-c.c. syringe and an 18 gauge X1/1/2” needle. “is this all you need?” The clerk was confused.
“Yes, that’s it,” Micheal started to pick up his purchase and leave, but the clerk recognized him.
“Weren’t you in here a couple of years ago, getting the same thing? I don’t remember all my customers, but strange orders get my attention. What do you need these for?”
“Look, I’ll level with you. I’m an addict, and my roommate is a nurse. I stole this stuff from him to get a fix when he wasn’t home. He’ll get in trouble, though, if any of his things are missing, so I want to replace them before he or his bosses realize that they’re missing. If you’ll just do me a solid and sell me this stuff, I’ll get help from narcotics anonymous or some organization like that, but I don’t think my roomie should pay for my addiction.”
“Get help, please. That’s a really big needle to use for shooting up. You’re going to kill yourself if you aren’t careful.” The clerk cautioned as he bagged the merchandise.
That night, Tellez counted his sharps as he did obsessively each night, and everything was accounted for. When the hands at the Payne Ranch counted their sharps and meds, none were missing. Judith decided to keep the ranch and make Joaquin Salazar her permanent foreman if he could pass a drug test each month.
Tellez was in a good mood that night. He decided that it was time to make an honest woman out of his former instructor. He called from the restaurant and asked his roommate to join them in celebrating the happy news when his girlfriend said “yes.” Micheal accepted. He reasoned that he could gather a lot of valuable medical information from two nurses, and he really did enjoy watching the two men die.
C.: Oh my! Well, that concludes d.c. scot’s short story “Murder or Mercy?” Please join me here tomorrow for another episode of Cal.E.’s Korner.