by Kate Gable
I don't say anything and neither does she. I feel bad.
I wish that there was something I could do. So, I get up and buy us two more crepes.
"I applied there,” she tells me when I return.
"To the school?" I ask, putting the crepes on the table in front of me and sit down.
"Yeah. I got in. They gave me a scholarship. It’s impossible to get in without knowing someone or being related to some famous person, but I did. It's really prestigious, but people who graduate from there go on to have exhibitions at the Getty Museum and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. It's a really big deal."
"How much does this scholarship cover?" I ask.
“Fifty percent."
"What did Mom say?"
"That's why she got so mad. She didn't want to hear about it. She said she couldn't afford it and that it's stupid to spend so much money on art school anyway.” Violet’s face gets so red, she looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “She was the one who dragged me to all these museums when I was a kid. She taught me to love art and now, she’s suddenly completely against it. I told her that I could apply for loans, but they would have to be in a guardian’s name since I’m underage.”
It’s not lost on me that she said ‘guardian’ instead of ‘Mom’ to send me a message.
I nod, trying to figure out how I can help.
“What does this have to do with the concert though?” I ask.
“After she refused to even talk about art school, I got mad and didn’t want to deal with her anymore."
I try to put my arm around her, but she shrugs me off.
"I don't want to talk about this. Let's just have fun today. Can we do that?" she asks, sucking in some air and wiping a small tear out of the corner of her eye.
“Of course,” I say with a nod.
Chapter 2
Violet refuses to talk about the school or anything that happened with our mom. We wander around The Grove, peeking into boutiques and touching a lot of stuff, but buying nothing.
I know that she doesn't have much money and I debate as to what I should offer to buy her. She pulls me toward Nordstrom. I cringe because everything in there is quite expensive.
While she admires a nice pair of faux leather boots, I get a phone call from my supervisor.
Four bodies have been found in Laurel Canyon. The only survivor is a fourteen-year-old girl who ran away as the house went up in flames.
"We need extra people on the scene," Captain Medvil says. "Riker and Malone are on vacation. I know it's your day off, but please come in."
He texts me the address and I have no choice. Then I glance at Violet.
She puts down the boots knowing that they’re way too expensive but shows me a delicate beaded bracelet with a tiny peace sign. I offer to buy it.
As we stand in front of the cash register, I tell her that I have to go.
"What do you mean? I thought today was your day off?"
"It is, but there was a murder and we're short-staffed,” I say and the saleswoman’s eyes perk up.
"Can I come?"
“No, I'm going to drop you off at home."
"Come on, please. I want to see what you do,” she begs.
I shake my head no. “It’s a crime scene. That would be unprofessional."
"Tell them that you can’t leave me at home. I'm underage, remember?"
I shake my head no, trying to remain firm.
"I'll stay in the car. I promise. I won't get in the way. I just want to see what you do for a living.”
I consider that for a moment, shifting my weight from one foot to another. The clerk hands Violet the bag and me the receipt and we walk out.
"I haven't been there yet, but it's a murder scene,” I say slowly. “It’s probably gruesome. There are dead bodies. You can only come if you stay in the car. You can't go inside the house. You can't see the scene. None of that."
"I understand. Yes, of course.” Violet smiles from ear to ear.
"Why do you want to come anyway?" I ask when we get back to the car.
"You're a detective for the LAPD. That's a big deal, but I don't really know what it is that you do exactly except for what I see on television."
"That's not all entirely accurate,” I scoff.
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"Well, for one, crimes aren't solved in an hour."
"I know that.” She laughs.
"Forensic evidence takes a while to get back. Weeks. Often even longer than that, especially in rape cases,” I say driving out of the parking garage. “Did you read that series of articles in the LA Times about all of the untested rape kits that are piling up in evidence rooms?”
“Wait, what?” She gasps. “They never did the DNA tests?"
“Nope.” I shake my head. "A lot of police departments are understaffed or poorly run. Funds and time aren’t allocated well. It's not a perfect science like it is on television and a lot of cases go unsolved as a result."
Suddenly, I regret telling her any of this.
"What about this case?” Violet asks after a long pause.
"Well, obviously we have to solve it.”
I get to Laurel Canyon, where houses are piled one on top of the other on an almost vertical hilltop etched into the sides of the mountain.
It seems unlikely that they would remain there for any significant period of time, especially through the heavy rains, but here they are.
I park on a narrow street and change into the sneakers that I always keep in the trunk.
I tell Violet to stay in the car.
When I see all the ambulances and the flashing lights, I realize that it was probably not a good idea to bring her. I had an inkling about this, but the scene is even more overwhelming than I thought it would be.
I go past the security tape, flashing my badge. It’s unusual for Captain Medvil to be there. He rarely shows up at the crime scene. But a whole family is dead.
He's here to conduct a press conference after they notify the next of kin and mainly to see that the investigation doesn't hit any roadblocks.
To make sure that the scene isn't contaminated, I put on cellophane shoe covers, a one-time use robe, and a plastic shower cap to cover my hair.
With all the investigators coming in and out, there's a strong likelihood that something could be missed, or someone else's DNA or hair fibers might be dropped.
"Glad you made it, Carr," Captain Medvil says.
He's a broad-shouldered, heavyset man who's a lot more competent than he looks. I have worked for other captains before but he's the one who is the most equal-footed and focused on doing the right thing.
You'd be surprised, but that’s not always the default.
We walk through the house and look at the bodies. The first one belongs to Cynthia, a sixteen-year-old girl shot dead in her room, followed by her older brother, eighteen-year-old, Eric.
Their parents are on the other side of the house, still sitting in bed with a laptop open on the father’s lap. There’s a book on the floor, probably belonging to the mother, who dropped it after being shot through the forehead.
“It’s an execution," I say to Captain Medvil.
He nods and admits, "I haven't seen a case like this in…never.”
Usually when the whole family is dead, it’s the father who is responsible.
“Any chance that it was a murder suicide?" I ask.
“Maybe if you believe that a fourteen-year-old girl did this to her whole family.”
We exchange looks, hating to consider this but knowing full well that we must.
"The girl is in the back of an ambulance in shock. Hasn’t said a word,” Captain Medvil says. "I want you to talk to her. Maybe she'll feel more comfortable."
"I hope so," I say.
"She ran to the neighbor's house,” Captain Medvil says. “She said someone came in and shot her family then started the fire. She ran out when the smoke got bad. The fire burned through one bedroom right next
to the master but luckily it was put out before it penetrated the rest of the house."
I walk back and look at the charred room. There's evidence of fire all around the house as well, mostly where it had been put out by an enormous amount of water from the fire department.
"This isn't going to help with the DNA collection,” I mumble to myself.
"No, it's not.” He shakes his head.
Obviously, it depends on where it was left or what happened, but the mass quantities of water have not made our job any easier.
As I make my way through the scene, I make mental notes of what I see.
An older house in a neighborhood of new construction, but the family is still clearly well off.
You have to be rich to live in this Canyon. There's hardly anything for sale, even 700 square feet that's less than a million dollars and this house looks to be about 2,500 square feet.
The house is a wooden structure with craftsman interior piled on with a few other motifs like art deco in some places and a little bit of Scandinavian design here and there.
I've noticed that the way people live in their apartments and in their houses tells me a little bit about who they are. It's like a glimpse into their personality.
Do they hoard a lot of stuff?
Do they unpack?
Is everything neatly put away in its place? It's hard to make judgements one way or another, but that's my job.
I decide who they are, what they want, and what could have had led to this happening.
Of course, a lot of it is just a stab in the dark.
“Kaitlyn! Kaitlyn?" I hear Violet's voice echoing around the house.
I gasp and a cold sweat runs down my neck.
"No, no, no, no, no. Get out!" I yell, rushing out the door and down the stairs to prevent her from coming in.
Somehow the deputy who was stationed outside stepped away and there was no one to block her from coming in.
I get to her right before she breaches the doorstep.
"Get out!” I point and say as sternly as possible.
I take her back down the wraparound porch and back behind the yellow tape. I pull her closer to the oak tree so that my colleagues don't see.
"What are you doing? I told you to stay in the car."
"I know, but I have to go to the bathroom."
"That doesn't mean that you can come into the crime scene, okay? You see what I'm wearing? You could drop a strand of your hair, or you could touch something and you could contaminate the whole scene."
"Look, I'm sorry, but I really have to pee. I called you and you weren't answering your phone. I didn't know what to do."
I exhale loudly, looking around for a solution. I don't find one.
Sometimes when we're here for a while, they bring in a porta-potty to accommodate our needs, but it hasn't arrived yet.
"You have to go down there.” I point.
She stares at me as if I've lost my mind.
"Yeah, I said what I said.”
She glances down the steep hill with the occasional tree and a lot of shrubbery.
“No!” Violet says, crossing her arms. “What are you talking about? Give me a ride back. There's a gas station at the bottom of the street."
"I'm not leaving. This is my job."
"I can't pee in the woods."
"Yes, you can. Just go down there and go to the bathroom and I'll just keep a look out from up here."
"No, isn't this, like, illegal?"
"No one lives down there. You just have to be careful, so you don't slide all the way down."
"I can't believe that you're telling me to do this.” She gasps. "I don't even have the right shoes."
"Well, whose fault is that? I told you I could drop you off, but you didn't want to. What do you expect me to do?"
She shakes her head.
"Listen, Violet, it's either this or you have to hold it. I have to get back to work."
"Fine, fine," she mumbles.
I watch as she carefully maneuvers down the hill. It's pretty steep, but luckily there are boulders and some tree stumps to get behind.
I see a few deputies walk by. I ask them a few questions about the crime scene, positioning them so that their back is away from Violet.
A few minutes later, she finally emerges, annoyed and covered in dirt after apparently having fallen and skidded a little further than she wanted.
I can't help but smile.
"You think this is funny?" she asks.
"It's a little humorous.” I giggle.
We walk back to the car. I open the door for her and tell her not to get out again.
"If I see you out of this car, you'll never be allowed to come with me to work again, you got that?"
She hangs her shoulders, puts her earphones in, and I hope that there's enough on YouTube to keep her occupied for a while.
Walking away, I head toward the ambulance. A small girl sits with her feet dangling on the edge of the open door. Wrapped in a gray blanket, she watches me very carefully.
This is the survivor.
She's the one who lost her whole family.
She looks at me with her deep dark eyes full of so much sadness and darkness that it makes my whole heart ache.
I take a deep breath, walk over to her, and introduce myself.
2
The girl is diminutive, but sturdy. She has long, shoulder-length, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes. Her legs are muscular and her shoulders are broad, even despite the fact that she is slouching under the thick blanket.
I can tell that she's not a stranger to running and that's why she ran so far. There are closer neighbors, but she ran almost two miles before knocking on someone's door and calling the police.
This girl and I maintain eye contact my whole walk over from my car. I keep waiting for her to look away from me, but she doesn't.
Her eyes are laser focused. When I get closer, I realize that she’s not staring at me, per se, but rather through me, almost as if she can see to the other side.
“Angie?"
She nods.
There’s a small wound on her head, where she’s got stitches, and a little bit of the dried blood remains caked onto her hairline.
"Angie, I'm Detective Carr. I want to ask you a few questions about what happened."
“Okay,” she says after a long pause.
"Can you tell me who you saw last night? Who you saw doing this? Who was at your house? What happened?”
I shouldn’t have started with such a large amount of questions.
"Yeah, I guess, but I didn't see his face, or their faces."
"So, there were multiple people?"
"No, I have no idea. I woke up and they were there, but I didn’t see them.”
“How did you hurt your head?”
“I ran into the wall. I woke up when I heard the shots, but I wasn't sure what was happening and then I smelled the smoke. I ran to my parents’ room and I saw them. Then I just started running."
"Running?"
"Yeah. My dad said that if I was ever in trouble or if anything bad ever happened, like 9/11, or anything like that, just to run, not to freeze. If someone was after me, trying to pull me away, or take me somewhere, I was supposed to run. I'm a runner."
"What do you mean by that?" I ask.
"I run cross country at school and track. Dad was training me. He said I could go to the Olympics."
Just like that, the trance seems to fade away. The shock disappears and tears begin to flow.
Angie begins to sob, burying her head in her hands. I tell her how sorry I am and try to put my arm around her, but she just cries harder. After a few moments, I realize that she needs space.
I feel like I have broken something. She seemed to be talking and processing everything just fine and then everything changed.
A social worker arrives right in the middle of all of this.
"I'm really sorry," I say. "Angie was just fine when I started talking to her and getting he
r statement. Then she told me how her dad wanted her to go to the Olympics and suddenly she broke down.”
“That’s pretty common,” the social worker says. “What she witnessed was a major trauma. When you first talked to her, she was probably still in a state of shock, but to a point where it was a bit distant from her, like she was talking about somebody else. When she started talking about her dad, it just became too much.”
I nod, feeling like I did something wrong, nevertheless.
The interview is pretty much over at this point, as the social worker and the psychologist, who arrived a little bit later, tell us that she needs time to process everything that she has witnessed and make sense of it.
I totally understand except that I wish that she could give me just a little bit more to go on.
I have found that whenever people try to make a narrative of something they have watched, seen, or experienced, it often doesn't turn out to be as accurate as when I get their memories firsthand.
The best is when they offer no story, no narrative building, just experiences, which I can then sort out.
I wait awhile to approach Angie again, but it’s not long enough. She begins to sob upon seeing me and I know that this is not going to work out.
Detective Abrams arrives a little bit after and Captain Medvil assigns us to work together. There are others on the case, as well, but we'll be the primaries.
I catch him up on what we have so far, and he gives me a little wink when no one is looking.
I should have known better than to get in this situation because it's not that he can't keep a secret, it's more that he will push the boundaries and almost get us caught.
Thomas and I have been dating for about three months. It started out as hooking up and then got a little bit more serious. He's the kind of guy who's always down for a good time. It doesn't matter if he worked a twenty-four-hour shift, if someone suggests a spontaneous trip to Vegas where you don't sleep for two nights, he's down. He's always ready to party.
We make kind of an odd couple because I'm more of a homebody. I'll go out to the bar with friends and that sort of thing, but I prefer to stay home, relax, read, and watch some Netflix. Thomas never seems to need to unwind.