Seems like fact once again trumps fiction

by Rick Blechta

I’ve been avidly reading news reports the past few days. Current events have given us the rather horrible saga of Jeffrey Epstein. I’m sure you all have a good grasp on at least the general details at this point, so I won’t bore you with repeating them. If you need to bone up, though, go HERE.

Epstein’s case presents a star-studded cast with many very powerful people involved. They partied and spent time with this guy and if it comes out they had anything to do with underage girls, they are in serious trouble. Every single one who has been mentioned so far has stated their case strongly that they knew nothing about it, had no involvement in it, and in some cases “I hardly knew this man.” They have a lot to lose if that’s not the case. My guess is there are — or were — a lot of sweaty palms once again when Epstein was recently arrested.

Normally in a crime that’s given the “novelization” treatment, a particular case gives you one good book. Peter Robinson did an excellent job using some facets of the sensational Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case, turning it into the excellent Aftermath (highly recommended).

In the Epstein case, though, I’m seeing two novels. The first would involve the time up to his first trial, where he pretty well skates free spending very little time in jail for a pretty horrendous crime. Imagine how the detectives who investigated and built their case must have felt when Epstein made his deal.

Then our dedicated defenders of the law work to build a second case against Epstein (nice series character set-up here, no?) and he’s thrown back into jail to await trial since bail was denied. Then suddenly, the man is dead, apparently by his own hand.

We’ve all read the books, seen the movies. I wonder how many people feel that it was just guilt weighing down on him that drove Epstein to hang himself in his jail cell? Probably not many. There are just too many anomalies in how the jail screwed up, how all the systems failed at once.

Powerful people can do powerful things. Our intrepid sleuths would certainly have to put their lives on the line in their search for what really happened in that jail cell.

I can think of several scenarios that would make a totally gripping thriller and I’m sure you can too.

My guess, though, is that we’re far from the end of this tale. Whether the actual truth comes out or not remains to be seen.