Girl Hidden

by Kate Gable

"So, are you sure that there's no way that he snuck out or possibly had someone else do it?"

  "Of course there is," Thomas says with a casual shrug.

  He's wearing his favorite blazer and a tight pair of slacks that make his butt look amazing. He's no stranger to bench presses or running and I admire the leanness of his body a little too long for comfort.

  He notices and gives me a wink. I quickly turn around to make sure that nobody's watching us while he shakes his head in disapproval.

  "You know, you can't be this shy if you want to get anywhere in life."

  "I'm not shy; just not interested,” I say. "This is about something else and you know exactly what I'm talking about."

  He laughs and makes a little kissing sound with his lips, pushing the envelope with everything as always.

  "We're at my desk and there are people around."

  Even though I want to admonish him, I don't want to talk about this any longer than necessary.

  "So, he was home with his family last night? What about Angie? Is she staying there?” I ask.

  "No."

  “But he's her uncle,” I point out.

  "Yes, but they've had a falling out and haven't been in touch. He hasn't seen the family in years. You want the tapes?"

  "Wait, seriously, you talked to him?"

  "This morning I stopped by."

  "Without me?” I ask with my stomach in knots. He had no right to do this without me.

  "It was on my way," he says.

  "Look, this is our case and we work it together, okay?" I ask, trying to keep my anger from boiling over.

  He nods, but by the look on his face, I can tell that he's not really agreeing with me.

  "Listen, he was really distraught," Thomas says. "He didn't hide the fact that he had a falling out with his brother, but those were his nieces and nephew. He was shocked and he had nothing but good things to say about Julie."

  "So, you're certain that he's not involved? What about him wanting to get the business?"

  "He doesn't inherit it. It goes to Angie."

  "Yeah, but Angie is underage," I point out.

  He shrugs and says, "He's clearly still a suspect. I don't think he's going to get the business because there was a big lawsuit that lasted for years and finally Dale was the one who got it. He could have had someone else do it though."

  “But why kill the kids?" I ask rhetorically.

  Thomas nods and agrees.

  We head downstairs to the interview rooms to talk to Angie and McKenna again. Apparently, the social worker has agreed to let Angie stay with McKenna during this difficult time instead of with strangers and McKenna even showed an interest in getting custody of her.

  When I spot them in the hallway, I pull McKenna outside.

  "How's everything going?" I ask.

  "She seems better. I'm glad that she didn't have to stay with strangers, that they let her stay with me.” She nods, cracking her knuckles.

  The strap of her bag keeps falling off her shoulder but she props it up and doesn't give up trying to get it to stay. Her hair is swept up in a loose ponytail and she looks like she hasn't slept in a few days.

  "Angie has an uncle,” she says quietly.

  “Yes, we know. Timothy Hendrel."

  McKenna nods.

  Before I can launch into it further, Thomas clears his throat and gestures for us to go into the interview room. We head in together, the four of us. Technically, Angie is underage and should not be asked any questions without a guardian. McKenna is not officially her guardian, but the district attorney who's watching the recording has approved the interview.

  We need to talk to her. We need to get a little bit more information and the details of this conversation can be ironed out later.

  Angie sits across from me in the chair, although plastic and small, it makes her look tiny. She's wearing a pair of comfortable joggers and a slouchy sweatshirt with her bra strap peeking out.

  There’s no makeup and her hair that looks like it hasn't been washed in a couple of days droops down her shoulders. For a second, I wonder when the last time was that it was brushed.

  "Thanks for coming in, Angie," I say. "McKenna."

  "Yeah, of course," she mumbles. "Are you getting any closer to finding out who did it?" She looks at me, then kind of through me, behind the wall behind me.

  "Well, that's actually what I want to talk to you about. We've talked to all the neighbors, the flower shop employee, and your uncle."

  "Uncle Timmy?" she asks.

  I nod.

  "You know he's a drug dealer, right?"

  I nod again.

  "He wanted the flower shop. He was obsessed with it. He threatened my dad numerous times, even tried to torch it."

  "Torch it?" Thomas huffs, leaning over and opening his notepad. "How do you know this? There isn't a record."

  "No, there wouldn't be. He's got a bunch of cops on his payroll, but that's what my dad said. He said Uncle Timmy did it. There was a fire. The backroom burned down, but they were able to stop it in time and the insurance paid out."

  Suddenly she seems a lot more worldly than she did earlier.

  "I wanted to ask you something," I say, leaning over.

  Thomas and I had talked about this earlier. How are we going to bring this up? It's all about her initial reaction.

  It's going to tell us everything.

  I reach into my bag and pull out an evidence bag. There’re shell casings inside and the blood drains away from her face.

  "Do you know what this is?" I ask, lifting it up in front of her.

  McKenna looks confused and surprised, but Angie just recoils away from me. She doesn't look shocked though, just uneasy.

  "I don't know, bullets," she says after a moment.

  "Close," I say. "Shell casings, which is what's left of the bullets after they're fired."

  This time, she looks at me, not at the bag, straight at me and her lower lip begins to tremble.

  "We found these, and they match the scene. They match the bullets that killed your family.”

  Angie begins to cry.

  "How can you say it like that?" McKenna gasps. "Can you take that away? She's just a little girl."

  While I don't put it away, I do lower the evidence bag and place it on the table.

  "Do you know where we found them?"

  She shakes her head and McKenna looks disgusted, but I keep going. Thomas was the one who wanted to interview Angie, but I thought that he would be too forceful and too arrogant.

  It would be more effective for me to do it. I'm a woman, I'm not particularly intimidating, and I can relate to her since I was once a teenage girl.

  "The shell casings were found in your bedroom," I say very slowly, enunciating every word. "They were wrapped up in toilet paper, five squares. They were wrapped up and shoved in the back of your desk. Why did you do that?" I ask, the last question is an accusation.

  Her eyes flash up to me. She looks shocked, disappointed, and crestfallen all at once.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "Okay. Let's say that's true," I say as calmly as possible. "This person who came into your house, shot your family, picked up all the shell casings, and hid them in your desk. Why?"

  "I don't know." She shakes her head.

  "Why wouldn't he take them with him?"

  "Maybe to frame me," she whispers quietly.

  "Maybe he didn't exist at all," I say sternly.

  “I have no idea what you're talking about."

  She swallows hard and her shoulders begin to shake. I'm onto something and getting at the truth, I can feel it.

  "What are you accusing her of exactly?" McKenna asks. "You think that she killed her own family?" I wish that she weren't here, but she's the unofficial guardian so she'll have to do.

  At least McKenna’s not a lawyer.

  Suddenly, Angie begins to sob. Her whole body moves with each wave and she wipes her tears with the back of her hand
. She gasps for breath, but I continue.

  "There wasn’t any forced entry, no broken doors, no broken locks. Either someone walked in and the doors were unlocked, which was unlikely according to the neighbors and your father's friends due to the fact that he had such an acrimonious relationship with his brother, or it was an inside job."

  "It wasn't a job," Angie cries. "It was an accident."

  There it is.

  The room gets so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop.

  This is what I was waiting for. This is what I wanted to get out of her.

  She knows something that she's not telling.

  "An accident?" I ask. "What kind of accident?"

  "Angie, you don't have to say anything," McKenna says, suddenly coming out of her trance.

  Shut up, shut up, shut up, I say silently to myself to try to silence her.

  "No, I have to explain," Angie says. "I don't want them to get the wrong impression."

  McKenna reaches over to grab Angie's hand, but she pulls away and leans over the table.

  "It was an accident," she whispers, looking straight into my eyes. "I didn't mean for any of that to happen."

  "What do you mean exactly?" I ask.

  "I was so angry with my dad. He called me a..." She pauses, swallowing her words.

  "He called you what?"

  "The C word," she whispers. "I can't even say it."

  "You don't have to."

  "He heard from a friend of his that I had a boyfriend, and I wasn't supposed to have a boyfriend until I was fifteen. We didn’t do anything except kiss, so what? Is that a big deal? Everyone at school has been sleeping around with everyone else for two years and my parents were freaking out over me kissing a boy."

  "I know, that must have been terrible," I say.

  After putting on all of that pressure, I have to make her believe that I'm her friend. I need her to open up to me and to tell me what happened.

  "Angie, you need an attorney. You can't talk,” McKenna pipes in.

  "No, shut up!” Angie yells at her. "I'm going to explain. This isn't my fault."

  "Go ahead,” I urge her.

  "It was a mistake. I had a big fight with my dad, and I was so angry, so I went into the garage where my dad kept his gun. He always kept it loaded and with the silencer on just in case someone broke in.”

  She pauses for a moment to collect her thoughts.

  “Please go on,” I urge her gently.

  "He told us the combination to the safe, just in case we ever needed it, and I was just going to threaten him with it. I just wanted to show him that he can't just bully me around and make me feel terrible and call me names. Then my brother saw me with it. He startled me and the gun went off."

  I stare at her.

  Is she really saying what I think she's saying?

  "Then my sister started to scream and I needed her to just stop. She was yelling so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself think. So, I shot her, too."

  I lose track of my thoughts.

  It's almost as if my mind stops working.

  I can't believe what I'm hearing. My mouth drops open a little bit and it takes actual effort to close it.

  "What about your parents?" Thomas asks.

  I glance over at McKenna who is staring at this girl before her in disbelief. Our eyes meet but we both look away from each other quickly.

  "I kept waiting for them to come out,” Angie continues. “They didn't. Their TV was on really loud, so they didn't hear anything. My brother and sister were dead and I don't know, I was still so angry at my dad and he made me do all of that. It was just an accident."

  There are no tears streaming down her face. There’s just a vacant, empty expression indicating no remorse whatsoever.

  "So, what happened then?" I ask.

  "I'll tell you, but you have to promise that I won't get in trouble."

  Suddenly, she reverts back to being a child. It’s like she’s telling me a story but doesn’t think there will be any consequences. Does she actually think that she will walk out of this room a free woman?

  With every word she says, she's burying herself deeper underground. She doesn't know it yet, but she'll never leave prison if she's lucky enough not to get the death penalty.

  "What happened then?" I ask, realizing that the need to know the truth and that the story is stronger than any urge that I have to protect her.

  "I went to my parents' room and they were sitting in bed," she says quietly. "I had the gun behind my back, and I was still so angry with them for making this whole thing happen. My dad started to say something and then my mom saw the gun. She started to yell, and I shot her. I shot my dad last because I had to tell him it wasn’t all my fault and that none of this would have happened if it weren't for him."

  The silence in the room is deafening. My head starts to pound, and my mouth is so parched that it feels like a desert.

  "What about the fire?" Thomas asks, leaning back in his chair.

  "What about it?" Angie whispers.

  "Did you start it?"

  She shakes her head.

  "Who did?"

  She looks at McKenna.

  "Did you start the fire, Angie?" she asks, and both begin to cry.

  Angie reaches over and buries her head in McKenna's shoulder, saying yes over and over again, her voice muffled by the fabric of the sweater.

  8

  After Angie is officially arrested and taken into custody, I turn to Thomas in disbelief.

  "How could it be her?" I ask.

  "Man, I thought I was a cynic," he says, "but I would have never figured that she could do something like that."

  "I guess everyone is capable of just about anything," I say, though privately, I agree with him. Angie seemed so traumatized over the death of her family, but now I think she was just traumatized by what she’d done.

  Still, the last thing I expected was to find out that she was the one who was responsible for it.

  Katherine Harris, the assistant DA, comes into the break room with a smile on her face.

  "You can't be happy about this," I say.

  “Why not? You got the confession. Now we're just going to comb through the evidence, confirm that she's telling us the truth, and put her away for life.”

  I shrug, slumping my shoulders.

  “What do you want me to do, Kaitlyn? She killed four people and she admitted it.”

  “Yes, of course, I know,” I admit.

  "What about the fact that she didn't have a guardian with her? Is that going to be a problem?" Thomas asks.

  "Her attorney is definitely going to make a case about that and we're just going to have to duke it out in court. I’m not sure she would’ve come forward like this without McKenna’s presence. Now, we just have to make sure we get all the corroborating evidence we can in case that confession gets thrown out.”

  “Could be an issue,” I point out. “I’m surprised you had us continue.”

  "She was staying with McKenna. So, McKenna was acting as her guardian at the time of this confession, but she's a teenage girl and I'm sure that she made other mistakes."

  "What do you mean?" I ask.

  "Well, there'll be corroborating evidence besides the shell casings, fingerprints, DNA, murder weapon, the works. You're going to have to find all of it."

  I nod. A part of me is glad that we have solved the case, but a part of me also has a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

  "Listen, I know this is a crappy situation. I mean, reading her rights, taking her into custody. I'm sorry about that, but thanks for doing your job, Kaitlyn. Thomas. We can't have a person like that out there on the streets."

  Thomas nods and I do as well, reluctantly. Usually, in a situation like this, after getting a confession, we go out for drinks to celebrate.

  But this afternoon, I'm not in the mood.

  I feel disgusted by what has happened. It’s not that I don't believe that Angie did it, I’m just torn up over t
he fact that something like this happened at all.

  Besides, I have something else to take care of back at the apartment.

  When I get back home, Mom is already there fighting with Violet. I can hear their voices in the hallway and I’m sure that my neighbors can as well.

  "I'm not going home with you!” Violet yells. "You can't make me."

  I walk in and throw my keys on the kitchen counter. Both Mom and Violet stop in their tracks and stare at me.

  "What happened to you?" Mom asks.

  "I had a tough case," I mumble.

  Violet comes down, sits on the edge of the couch, and continues to protest, but this time much less vociferously.

  Mom sits down next to her, taking her hand.

  "Violet, you have school next week. If you finish this year with good grades and if you don't skip any school, then we can start working on our relationship and I'll consider this art school."

  "Seriously?" Violet's face lights up.

  Mom nods.

  "I promise I'll be good. I can work all summer and try to get the tuition together so that you and Kaitlyn don't have to pay for everything."

  "Don't worry about that," Mom says. "That's the financial situation and I'll take care of it, or maybe I can get loans. It doesn't matter. If that's something that you want, you need to work hard. You need to turn things around. You need to show me that I can trust you."

  "Yes, of course. Anything. Anything at all," Violet says, draping her arms around Mom’s shoulders. She gives her a kiss on both cheeks and then smiles from ear to ear.

  I smile back.

  While Violet is gathering her things in the other room and packing up, I ask Mom what made her change her mind.

  She stares at me and says, "Nothing's changed."

  "What about what you just said?" I ask, nearly choking on a gulp of water.

  "Look, I'm telling her what she wants to hear. I need her to come home. I need her to behave. This art school faze is going to pass. She'll forget about it. All teenagers go through phases."

  My mouth drops open and I can't physically close it even when Violet comes out.

  She doesn't seem to notice a thing and instead gives me a warm hug and thanks me for talking some sense into our mom. I want to ask her to stay, but I can't quite find the words. I want her to stay but she needs to finish the school year and I’m too irresponsible to raise a teenager.