The Words that Come back to haunt you

“Anything else you need, Your Honor,” the security guard asked.  Judge Stan Martinez raised his head.
         “No thanks, Marc,” he said with a smile as he got back to the papers in front of him.  So much to do, and so little time.  The guard shook his head; out of all the judges in Pueblo Family Court Judge Martinez was the one who burned the midnight oil the longest.  But the judge was doing what he loved best: signing arrest warrants.
         Tomorrow Pueblo Police officers would execute stings on those worthless excuses of human life who didn't have the decency to support their children.  And those men would go before a judge and explain why they had been late.  He could almost hear their whining, cloying excuses.  “I couldn't find a job” “The ex wouldn't let me see my child.”.  On and on and on.
         He wouldn't be the one to hear them, but he almost wished  he could be there to thunder against their irresponsibility before sending them to the fate that they so deserved.  He almost remembered one case in particular he had heard this morning.  A worthless bum if he ever saw one and with the same worthless excuses as the rest. He remembered his response.  He claimed to be a writer, but could not sell any stories.  His anger had been almost therapeutic.
         “I have heard many excuses in my time Mr. Holmgren, but you are the worst.  You had the gumption to bring these children into the world but not the responsibility to support them.  If I was in your shoes I would have done what is proper.  Taken a second job, a third job.  Hell, Ernest Hemingway had more dignity than you in doing the right thing.  Well, I am giving you twenty-four hours and you better have the money or a toothbrush and toothpaste!”
         He felt his heart skip a beat and calmed himself.  Remember the ticker, he thought, pulling out a  bottle of heart medicine.  His wife had been on him about quitting his job, as had the doctors.  Too much stress for a man of his age.  But he always looked up at the posters drawn by kids who thanked him for the money and couldn't walk away.  It was for the children he stayed.
         He had been so en rapt by his thoughts that he jumped when he looked up.  There, in the same  second-hand suit he had stood in in front of his court, stood Mr. Josh Holmbgren.  Why hadn't Marc. . .?  ”Mr. Holmgren, it is past office hours, and if you want to pay the funds the court clerk will accept them. . .”
         he looked down, and saw something he thought he would never see in a court house again.  Holmgren held a shotgun limp at his side.  Stan rocked back out of his seat.  “GUARDS!  GUARDS!” He screamed as he scrambled to the corner.  Holmgren shuffled slowly towards him.  The scent of something acidic filled the air.  How could this happen!
         He tried to remember everything he had learned in the security classes they forced upon him after 9/11.  His bulletproof vest?  It hung uselessly in his closet next to his robe.  The security button?  Under his desk, and Josh stood between him and the desk.  That left only  talk; try to buy enough time.
         “Mr. Holmgren, I apologize for any bad feelings you may have felt.”  Stan said soothingly.  No response.  “I know this may seem like the proper response, but there are other ways out of this.  Don't throw your life away!  Think of your children!”  Think of. . .,” oh, what were there names?  Jeff and Cindy!  “Jeff and Cindy!  Do they want their father on death row.”
         Holmgren stopped in front of him.  He had a strange smile on his face.  “The words come back to haunt you,” he said.  Stan felt a clutching in his chest.  Not again!  He flipped the gun up, and darkness took him.
         
         Stan was surprised that he awoke anywhere but in front of the pearly gates.  The room was white, but unless they had hospital beds in heaven he was still alive.  A man in surgical greens stood over him.
         “Am I. . .,” Stan said wonderingly.
         “You're alive,” the man (a doctor, he presumed) responded.  “Though you dipped in and out there for a moment.”  Two men in uniform stood behind the doctor, one he recognized.  Marc stood over him.
         “You're lucky I came back on my rounds when I did,” Marc said.  “Hunched over your work.  You gotta quit Judge S.”
         “Hunched over my work!  I was shot!” Stan said.  The two men looked at each other.  “Josh Holmgren, a man in my court the other day.  Pick him up, he's. . .”
         “Oh, he's already in custody,” a third man, one in a business suit said.  Holmgren's lawyer said.
         “Wesley, if you knew what he was planning. . .” Stan knew he shouldn't get excited.  But Holmgren's lawyer walked over.
         “He's dead!”  Wesley said.  “He put your own words into effect, your honor!”  He spat the last two words out.
         “So, he broke into the court to kill himself in front of me, did he?” Stan said.  “A coward to the end.”
         “What are you talking about?”  Wesley asked.  “The police found him in his kitchen.  A duck gun to the chin.  Just like Hemmingway.”  And he tossed a photo into Stanly's chest.”  The doctor and the two police pushed him out, but Stan was too focused on the photo.  Mr. Holmgren, tipped over backwards from a chair with blood on the wall.  But he had found the strength to write seven words on the wall.
         
         The orderly found him dead in the morning.