by Martha Adele
“Yes, sir. Who is this?”
His answer shakes me to my core. Officer Gowdy tells me something I never thought I’d hear. We end the call, and I immediately redial the phone and have a cab come get me. Within thirty minutes, I am at the police department and heading to the front desk.
“Excuse me, sir,” I say to the man behind the desk, “my name is Logan Forge. Officer Gowdy called me here for—”
“Yes, sir.” A police officer in full uniform, holding a clipboard, walks out of the hallway and waves me back. “Come with me, son.”
The man at the desk goes back to typing, and I follow the other man back to his office. He takes a seat behind his desk and gestures for me to sit across from him. I obey.
“What’s going on?” I ask him as I meet the seat.
He hesitates for a moment. “Would you care for something to drink?”
I shake my head and scoot the chair forward. “No, sir. I would like to know what is going on.”
Officer Gowdy takes a few moments before setting his clipboard down in his lap. “Samuel Beckman is dead,” he tells me.
“Wh—” I find myself at a loss for words, along with a loss of air. My lungs don’t seem to be doing their job. This can’t possibly be true. It just can’t. “What happened?”
“We are unsure, but as of right now, it looks to be murder.”
“Murder?” I exclaim. Dark spots flood my sight, but I try to blink them away as the effect of adrenaline and lactic acid settling take over. “Who would murder Sam? Where did this happen? When did this happen?”
“Just a few hours ago. It was in a known vial distributor’s household.” He sighs and slides his clipboard over to him from in between us. “I can’t disclose much more information. The only other thing I can say is that there were a lot of prints at the scene. Most of them belonged to the house owners, but there was a set other than Sam’s that showed up.” He looks at his clipboard then back to me. “Do you know a Mavis Wamsley?”
“Yes, I do. Is she okay? What does she have to do with this?”
Officer Gowdy pauses for a moment and looks at me, seemingly unable to figure out what to say.
“What happened to Mavis?” I reiterate.
“Mavis, right now, is the main suspect for Samuel Beckman’s murder. She has prints all over the scene and was seen fleeing from the back of the house moments before our men arrived.”
“Where is she right now?”
“We don’t know, but—”
“Why is Mavis a suspect, but the others aren’t?”
He sighs. “Because her prints were the only ones found on Sam.”
No, this can’t be. “Mavis is not capable of that. She wouldn’t be able to overpower Sam! Plus, she is too—what’s the word?—nice, kind, incapable of killing! She wouldn’t do that.” I become unable to produce words as the shock sets in.
Henry.
Gramps.
Sam’s mom.
Janice.
Sam.
Is Mavis next?
“Wh—” I stutter out the words. “Why was I called here?”
“You and Mavis were the only two left of Sam’s emergency contact information.”
What?
This sinks in slowly. Sam has no family left besides Mavis and I, and Mavis is nowhere to be found.
Another officer interrupts us by knocking on his door and poking his head in. “Sorry, sir. A Derek Page is here for you. He says you spoke to him over the phone.”
Officer Gowdy nods. “One minute please.” The man in the hallway pulls away and closes the door. Gowdy looks back at me, puts on reading glasses, and picks up his clipboard and a pen. “So, Mr. Forge, may I please ask you a few questions?”
I nod.
“How close were Sam and Mavis?”
“We just met a few months ago, but we were all pretty close. Those two were about as tight knit as you can get. They were like siblings.” I pause for a moment before looking back up to him. “Which is another reason why I can’t believe Mavis would do such a thing.”
The officer looks up to me over his glasses and stops writing. He sets his pen down and pulls his glasses off his face. “Mr. Forge, let me tell you something. There was once a pair of brothers. The youngest kept flocks, and the eldest kept the soil. Over time, the eldest brother held resentment against the youngest because the youngest was favored by his father. Not too long after the resentment began, the eldest murdered the youngest with a rock. A rock, Mr. Forge. This was the first murder ever recorded. Sibling against sibling. And you know what? I’ve seen it happen many times since.” He places his glasses back onto his face and continues writing.
“Now, Mr. Forge, how close were you to Mavis and Sam?”
I take a moment to think. Sam and I were friends. We weren’t extremely close, but I was closer to him than I’ve been to a lot of people. And Mavis? After last night? After finding out about her dad, her mom, and her brother after all this time? I guess we aren’t very close. “Mavis and Sam were a lot closer than I was to either of them,” I answer honestly.
“But what was your relationship to each of them?”
“Sam and I were somewhat close. So were Mavis and I, but we were more distant friends, I guess. We hung out sometimes, but we didn’t really know much about each other apparently.”
“Apparently?” he asks me.
I shrug.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
I shake my head. “No, sir.”
“You do know I just want to help, right?”
I nod. “Yes, sir. I know.”
“Okay.” Gowdy clears his throat. “Do you have any information or any idea where Mavis may be?”
I shake my head again. “No, sir.”
He pauses for a moment and slides me a card with his phone number on it. “If you can think of anything or want to share anything that can help us find Mavis, call this number or come in to see me. Okay?”
I nod.
“I want to point out that Mavis may not have done it, so finding her is the best way to keep her safe from the people who did.”
From the way he is forcing his voice to be soft, I feel as if he is lying.
“Yes, sir,” I answer. “Thank you.”
He opens one of his desk drawers and pulls out a small clear bag that contains the orange gemstone necklace that Sam had made after his mom died. From what Mavis told me, he wore it everywhere and hadn’t taken it off since the moment he got it. “This won’t do us any good to keep to ourselves, and I figure that it was important to your friend. Would you like to take it with you?”
A brief moment of hesitation passes by just before I nod.
I rise to my feet, and Officer Gowdy shakes my hand and slides me the gemstone of Sam’s mother. “Have a good day.”
I thank him and exit his office, placing the bag into my pocket. When I make my way down the hall and back out to the main area, I see a familiar head of red hair. Derek sits with his elbows on his knees, supporting his upper body as he stares at the floor. His folded hands seem to be clenched together as he waits to be called.
Derek’s head tilts up, and his eyes fall upon me. The moment he sees me, his eyes grow big and he rises to his feet. “What’s going on?” He comes over to me in a calm and yet panicked frenzy. “What happened?”
My head shakes, and my palms find their way to my eyes. “Sam’s dead. Sam is dead. And they think Mavis killed him.”
I drop my hands to see Derek’s jaw clenched. He pulls out his messenger and is interrupted by the person behind the desk.
“Mr. Page, Officer Gowdy will see you now.” The man stands and waves him over so he can be walked back.
“One minute please.” He turns back to me and runs his free hand through his hair. “Why would they think that?”
/> “Mr. Page,” the man reiterated, “Officer Gowdy needs to see you now.”
Derek shakes his head in disbelief and rubs his jaw, looking at the messenger. After a moment, he follows the desk man back, leaving me alone. I head outside and flag down a cab, noticing the light hint of sunlight on the edge of the sky. The sunrise slowly inches its way up as I make it back home and fix myself some tea.
If I am going to work today, I may as well stay up.
I stand by the teapot, waiting for the water to come to a boil, and hear something else instead.
“Who called earlier?” Eric asks me as he crutches out of his room in his boxers and a shirt. “Where did you go?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s fine.” He continues over to the wooden dining room table and takes a seat. The moment he sits, his whole body shimmies with chills. “The seat is cold.” He looks from his legs, back to me, dropping his face into a serious expression. “Sorry. What happened?”
I take a deep breath. “I was called down to the police station. Sam is dead.”
“What?” Eric stumbles to find his words. “What happened?”
My eyes fall upon the tea kettle as I wonder how much longer it is going to be until the water comes to a boil. “Mavis killed him.” I would really rather not wait for my tea right now.
“What?” Eric reiterates.
“The officer told me that Mavis’s prints were found all over Sam’s body inside of a known vial distributor’s house.”
“No way.” Eric scoots forward in his seat and scoffs. “And that doesn’t necessarily mean that she killed him, right? Where is she now?”
“Apparently, she was seen fleeing the scene as the police showed up.” Way to go, Mavis. Make yourself look even more guilty.
Are you guilty?
I turn back to Eric to see his head lowered and shaking as he mutters something under his breath.
“What?” I ask him.
“Nothing.” Eric shrugs it off and straightens his posture. “Are you okay, Logan? I know that you went over to her place tonight, or last night, whatever, to be with her.”
Annoyed, I growl at Eric, “Why do you do that?”
“Why do I do what?” Eric defensively growls back. “Ask if you’re okay?”
“Mumble something under your breath and then change the subject. You do that all the time, and you know what? I want to know what you said.”
“What?”
“Right now. Tell me what you just told yourself.”
The tea kettle breaks our awkward silence by allowing its whistle to slowly grow louder until I turn the burner off and move the kettle. I shift my focus back to Eric and stare, realizing how mean I really am being, but I don’t care. This is getting ridiculous, and I want to finally know what he says all the time.
Eric looks down at his lap and rubs his fingers to distract himself, causing me to go back to rubbing my fingernails. Once, twice, three times on each nail.
“I was rude to Sam,” he finally tells me. “When he came over to see you, he came into my room and tried to apologize.” Eric looks up to me, but refuses to make eye contact. “He told me that I was the one who stood up for him, and he treated me like trash. He told me he was sorry.”
“How were you rude?”
“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at him, I didn’t acknowledge him, I didn’t do anything.”
That’s why Sam left in a small frenzy. He was trying to leave before he caused a scene. He was trying to make things right, and it came back to make him feel like trash. Eric did that to him.
I take the handle of the kettle and pour the water into my cup. “Would you like some tea?” I ask Eric.
He shakes his head and rises, grabbing his crutches. “No, I’m really tired.” He slowly adjust the crutches to fit into his underarms. “I’m going back to bed. You should probably get some rest too.”
I nod as Eric makes his way back into his room and I sit at the table with my steeping tea bag. The steam from my small mug spirals up in a whimsical fashion. I watch the wisp flow through the air, and I pull it close so that it hits my face and warms me.
After minutes, I pull the bag out of my pocket and set it on the table. I stare at the orange gemstone as I pull it out and rub my finger over it. It has already been swabbed for samples and cleaned, I assume, but I clean it myself anyway. Once I have scrubbed every bit of the piece thoroughly, I place it around my neck and wear it just as Sam did.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Werner
I make my way down the street and into headquarters. Through the dull green hallways, past a million different doors, and into Issana Burris’s office. The moment I open the door, she looks over her glasses at me and returns to writing.
Captain Burris works under General Wilson and beside Commander Young. Young runs the Taai, which is the special operations group of our militia, while Burris leads an even more elite group. She runs a large number of individuals, giving them each their own assignment to protect the freedom of Frieden and keep it secure. Our division is so classified that not even the members of the team know what the others are doing.
“Eventful night, Rhodes?” she asks me, never looking up from her papers.
“Yes, ma’am.” I close the door behind me and enter the room. After looking around, I notice that her oil lamps have been rearranged to have one in each corner of the room. It seems that every time I enter her office, they are rearranged in a different position.
“How many?” Burris asks.
“Six.”
She flips the page over and begins writing on the next one. “And you got them all?”
“There were six people, and I took six shots.” There were twelve people, and I took six shots. “I hit everything I aimed for.”
She nods. “How long did it take?”
“Thirty minutes or so.”
She looks up to me over her glasses. “Thirty minutes? That’s a little long for cleanup.”
“I did what I was supposed to. The rest is on the crew.” I called in the cleanup crew after the six other people fled. I made sure Mavis and the others got away.
Burris nods and looks back down to her papers. “Good job. Go home and get some rest. I will call you back when I have your next assignment, but you should be good for the next day or two.”
“Thank you.” I turn around and place my hand back on the door handle. There are so many questions running through my head. So many things I want to say and ask. I can’t ask the wrong thing without getting myself into trouble, so I think. I can feel Burris’s eyes focused on me, so I turn around and focus my eyes back on her. “Is there anything I need to know?”
She freezes. Tapping her pen on her finger, she asks me, “Like what?”
“Like the reason people are fleeing Frieden.”
Burris slides her glasses off and gestures to the seat across from her.
I sit and our eyes lock for a moment.
“Have you been given any reason to believe otherwise?”
I freeze, not knowing what to say.
“We get our commands from the command center in the capitol building. Those commands, after being written out and processed, go through General Wilson himself. They are signed off, filed in a filing system, and sent to us. Nothing you’ve been assigned was the result of a single man’s actions. Many people go through to make sure everyone is in check.”
I nod as I rise to my feet with a searing feeling that I made a mistake asking. I can sense her opinion of me lowering as I walk out of the room and out of the building. Even as I am dropped off at the end of the dirt road to my house, I feel that I should not have asked that question. It is obvious that even if there was something going on, Burris wouldn’t tell me. Why would she?
I hike my mile or two home throu
gh the woods and make my way inside. Being from Bloot, I don’t enjoy living in the city very much. I never liked the idea of everyone living so close together. That is why when I got the job up here, I bought the most secluded house in Kern. There are a few others scattered on the outsides of the city, but this one is the most hidden. It is surrounded by the forest and about as concealed as you can get in the capital. Its size reminds me a lot of my old house in Bloot, and the fact that I live alone helps the memories too. My parents died when I was a young teenager, and I have pretty much lived on my own since. Though I miss them, I don’t miss living with someone. I don’t miss having to clean up after others, nor do I miss all the excessive noise in the house.
The only thing I don’t like about my house is the fact that I have to walk this much to get to the road and back. I had stopped by here earlier today to drop off my gun from last night’s assignment and had to walk over two miles just to drop it off and get back to the cab.
It makes sense for me to do this though because I can’t walk around the city with it. I’m not allowed to unless I am heading to an assignment. Only the police force and certain clubs can own firearms. There are hunting clubs, but they are extremely exclusive, and usually the only ones who are allowed in them are the rich business owners and entrepreneurs. Plus, the background checks and psych evaluations before you can purchase a gun are rigorous. The police and my division undergo serious tests to make sure we are trustworthy and good shots while the hunting clubs seem to let whoever can afford it in.
I have to keep all of my weapons hidden, not that I suspect my house will be searched anytime soon. In the event that I am searched, or even attacked, I have hidden weapon spots throughout my house. Some rooms have guns. Some rooms have knives. All rooms have one or two hidden weapons.
My bedroom closet is where I keep my rifles along with my other weapons I take on assignment. The only other weapon I use regularly is my bow, which I keep in my spare room hanging on the wall. Legally, in Frieden, bows and arrows are the only real weapons the common folk are allowed to own. And considering this is my tool of choice in the first place, I was more than happy to purchase one as soon as I could.