Jumped

Detective Ricks was having a bad day and didn't need any more trouble. Cases were piling up, his partner was on vacation, and the last thing he needed was another busy-work case that wasted his time.

Henry Gillies, 29, was found dead on the sidewalk outside his apartment yesterday. From the looks of it, he had jumped from the roof, but there was no suicide note, no history of depression or mental illness. He was--by all accounts--normal.

The thing with normal people was that they aren't, not really. They hide parts of themselves away from others. Ricks figured that Gillies did his fair share of hiding and one day he couldn't hide any more, so he jumped. But because things weren't clear cut, he had to right a report on it, use due diligence and all that. Make sure it was really a suicide. Basically, a waste of his time.

His captain came over to his desk. He was portly man of forty-two. He had been breathing down Ricks's neck all week to clear his caseload.

"Medical examiner's report on Mr. Gillies," he said.

"I'm sure it will be a revelation." He took the report and threw it on the desk.

"Aren't you going to look at it?"

"Why? I know what the cause of death is."

"What?"

"Concrete poisoning. A full mouthful of it."