Conscious

"The witnesses aren't the best, but the consensus is that Jeff and Lance stomped Kentucky Dave to death," a homicide detective was overheard muttering to a coworker.
Kentucky Dave was homeless and, if he was fortunate enough to panhandle a fistful of change, had a propensity to quench his alcoholic's thirst with cheap Kentucky Deluxe whiskey. Short in height and slender in build, rarely did his mouth spew machismo nonsense as he preferred to be jovial and fun loving.  Occasionally his speech would drawl a far away, nearly hidden accent from the south where he refused to elaborate how he acquired the accent. 

Kentucky Dave's years of living on the streets bred adaptability, both in weather and dealing with people. He knew how to act feeble, weak and charming to illicit handouts from pedestrians and understood where to go when the weather became harsh. Overhanging tree branches, makeshift forts, and heated laundry rooms in apartment buildings were all carefully weighed options. He matched the appropriate shelter with the corresponding weather and was dutiful never to overuse any one location in fear the police would discover his hideouts and render them useless.

One bitterly cold, arctic blast forced Kentucky Dave to seek shelter with other homeless people in an apartment flop-house. The renter was sympathetic towards the homeless population and allowed them to stack inside like firewood while weathering cruel storms. All occupants shared the common addiction of alcohol which flowed freely with the goal of warding off any withdrawal shakes and preferably a mind numbing, speech slurring, passing out type of drunkeness.

Although seen through varying degrees of blurry, bloodshot eyes, something sparked rage with Jeff and Lance. Jeff was a pock-marked bully that became overly boisterous when drunk and enjoyed showing off his obnoxiousness. Lance, on the other hand, was the type who was simply born bad, without any conscious, regret or remorse. He was selfish, knew to stay quiet and not to draw attention to himself, and skulked around in the shadows always scheming for an opportunity to take advantage of a vunerable person or opportunity.

Whatever words were exchanged stirred the pack mentality as Jeff and Lance fueled one another's crazed efforts of stomping and kicking defenseless Kentucky Dave. Possibly due to exhaustion, the beating subsided with Kentucky Dave barely clinging to life. Peg nursed Kentucky Dave as best as she could where he pleaded not to call 911 since he thought he had a warrant. The next day, his condition worsened where paramedics were called and took him to the hospital with lights and sirens. Shortly thereafter, Kentucky Dave took his final breath.

Jeff and Lance were quickly rounded up and interrogated by detectives with each in denial of their involvement in the beating. Intoxicated witnesses were interviewed with differing details of the assault. Later interviews of the same witnesses revealed foggy memories with more discrepancies. Although fingers pointed to Jeff and Lance, the lead detective knew the District Attorny's office would not accept the case since the likelihood of a successful prosecution was highly doubtful. Not only did the witnesses' changing stories muddy the waters, but simply finding them again to testify would be a challenge since they randomly roamed the streets.

Jeff remained free, but not free from his guilty conscious. He spiraled downhill and struggled to simply exist. Lance, on the other hand, lacks a guilty conscious but soon lost his freedom by quickly getting caught with his hand in a different cookie jar where he could not deny involvment and landed in prison.

Maybe someday Jeff will cleanse his soul by stepping up and clearing his conscious, Lance never will, and Kentucky Dave's murder can be resolved.