by Jon Athan
Charlene continued, “So, maybe Wilson is killing the people who know about his relationship with Dominique. Maybe he's such a sick pervert that he's lost all control and he's going on a rampage. It's happened before, right? And, if it's happened before, it can happen again.”
Again, the group became quiet. Adam stared deeply at his girlfriend, as if he were suspicious of her intentions. Stephen absently stared at a wall, lost in his thoughts. Britney sucked her lips inward and waited for the next word.
Adam said, “I don't think we can throw Wilson under the bus yet. We need more evidence. We should find Hailey.”
“Hailey?” Stephen repeated in an uncertain tone.
“Yeah, Hailey Washington. If that rumor was right, then she was there when Tiffany died. She's the only person we haven't confronted.”
The teenagers nodded in agreement.
Britney said, “That sounds like a good plan, but does anyone know where she lives? I've seen her around school, we have a few classes together, but I've never spoken to her.”
“I know where she lives,” Stephen said. He took another puff, then he blew a cloud of smoke at his webcam. As the smoke cleared, the stoner said, “I've sold to her before. If we're going, I'm gonna need a ride.”
Britney said, “If you can't get Michael, I can borrow my mom's car and pick you all up. Sound good?” Yes, yeah—the teenagers mumbled. Britney said, “Okay. I'll pick up Charlene first, then Adam, then Stephen. I'll see you guys in a few.”
Britney waved, then she disconnected from the call. Stephen, coughing and grunting, indistinctly mumbled his goodbyes. Alone with his girlfriend, Adam stared at Charlene. He nodded at her, then he disconnected from the call.
Charlene closed her laptop, then she tossed the computer aside. She sat in silence on her bed, lost in a maze of doubt. She was suspicious of everyone.
Adam was quickly crossed off her list, though, since he was with her when they arrived at Melanie's house. Britney could have been the killer, but she didn't quite fit the description. From her group of friends, Stephen was the last person on her list.
She whispered, “Stephen, Stephen, Stephen... You know where everyone lives, don't you? I don't know what to think of you. I just hope it's not you.”
She sighed in disappointment, then she started to prepare for her day.
Chapter Thirteen
Where's Hailey?
From the passenger seat of the SUV, Charlene glanced around the neighborhood. The houses were small, the parked cars were old, and the lawns were unkempt. The neighborhood was not as fortunate as hers. Still, the area was cozy and welcoming. There was a sense of community in the neighborhood.
She stared at a beige two-story house and asked, “So, this is Hailey's house? Are you sure?”
Sitting behind her, Stephen nodded and said, “Yeah. I've been here before. I haven't been inside 'cause she didn't want me to come in, but I've been here. She lives with her grandma, I think.”
“Well, let's go see if Hailey will talk to us.”
Charlene climbed out of the car, her friends following behind her. She walked past the chain-link fence, strolling up the walkway as she examined the front of the house. She didn't see anyone at the windows, though. Something was afoot, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Her mind was clouded with ominous thoughts.
Charlene knocked on the crimson-red door—thud, thud, thud. She clasped her hands behind her back as she patiently waited. She glanced back at her friends upon hearing a set of lumbering footsteps inside of the house.
The door swung open.
An elderly woman in a floral-print duster and matching slippers stood in the doorway—Louise Washington. Louise squinted and adjusted her glasses as she stared at the teenagers. She didn't appear frightened or threatened by the group's presence. She smiled—the tender, heartwarming smile of a loving grandmother.
Louise said, “Oh, you must be Hailey's friends. How can I help you?”
Charlene responded, “Hello, Mrs. Washington. We were just hoping to speak to Hailey for a few minutes if that's okay. Is she home?”
“Of course, of course. I'm sure she wouldn't mind. Come in, make yourselves comfortable,” Louise said as she beckoned to the teenagers. As she stepped aside, allowing the teenagers to enter her home, Louise said, “And, please, call me Louise. No need for the 'miss' or 'missus.' Okay?”
“Okay,” the teenagers simultaneously responded.
Louise approached the stairs directly ahead of the front door. She knocked on the wall beside an archway to her right. The knocking echoed through the house.
Louise shouted, “Hailey, your little friends are here! Come down, sweetie!” There was no response. Smiling, she glanced back at the teenagers and said, “She's probably listening to music. Your music is so loud these days. I wouldn't be surprised if you lost your hearing before me.”
She chuckled and shook her head, then she hit the wall again.
As Louise knocked, Charlene glanced around the home. The archway to her right led to the living room. Polaroid photographs were framed and pinned to the walls. The furniture was outdated—a tube television, a record player, and the gist—but it all seemed to work. Through the archway to her left, she could see the kitchen. The dishes were clean and the table was neat. The woman was old and absent, but she took care of herself well.
Charlene asked, “Is anyone else home? Or do you live alone with Hailey?”
Louise nodded and said, “We live alone. Ever since Hailey's older brother went off to college, we've been holding down the fort—as some would say.”
“Her brother?” Stephen repeated in a doubtful tone. “You–You're talking about Anthony?”
“Yes. You know him? Such a sweet boy, isn't he?”
“Yeah... Yeah. I mean, he was cool.”
The teenagers glanced at each other. They knew about Anthony. He didn't go to college. He passed away two years prior in a drunk driving accident. His promising career in sports and academics was cut short by a fool who drank too much and decided to drive. The friends decided not to remind her about her grandson's death.
Charlene asked, “Do you think it would be okay if we went up there to talk to her? We'll be fast and respectful, I promise.”
Louise puckered her lips and shrugged. She said, “You seem like good kids... I suppose that's okay. I think Hailey would appreciate it. She's been acting a little strange lately. Go ahead. Her room is the first on the right.” As the group walked up the stairs, the friendly woman asked, “Would you like me to bring up some tea and cookies? Or maybe some coffee?”
Charlene shouted, “No, thank you! We'll be fine!”
“Alrighty then! I'll be down here if you need anything. Have fun.”
The group stopped at the top of the stairs and gazed at the first door on the right.
Charlene asked, “Do you think she'll try to fight us? Should we... Should we rush her?”
“Rush her?” Britney repeated, awed. “Jeez, Charles, she's not an animal. Let's just go in there and talk. If she doesn't want to, then we should just leave. It's as easy as that. I don't think Mrs. Washington needs anymore drama in her life. I definitely don't want her to see us holding her granddaughter down like that. I'm not going to jail over this.”
“Fine. Let's just... talk to her. Come on,” Charlene said. The group approached the door. As she knocked, Charlene said, “Hailey, it's Charlene. I had you in English last year, remember? We don't really talk, but I think we have Math together, too. Can we talk now?”
There was no response. The friends glanced over at each other, confused.
Charlene leaned closer to the door and said, “It's really important. I'm... I'm going to open the door, okay? I'm coming in.” She glanced back at her friends as she reached for the door knob. She repeated, “I'm coming in...”
Hailey's bedroom was empty. The bed on the other side of the room was disheveled, the bed sheets rumpled and torn. The desk to the right was normal, but the computer c
hair was knocked over. A dime bag of weed sat atop the dresser to the right. Crumbs of the marijuana were scattered across the dresser. And, most disconcerting of all, dried blood stained the floorboards towards the center of the room.
There was a struggle in the bedroom—and Hailey was nowhere to be found.
As she glanced around the room, eyes wide with fear, Britney asked, “What happened here?”
Adam tiptoed over the blood and approached the center of the room. He said, “We don't have a lot of options here, guys. We either run out of here and call the cops or...”
“Or what?” Stephen asked.
“Or, we seize the opportunity and take a look around. If we tell the cops, they'll lock this house down and they won't tell anyone about what they find. Personally, I think it would be best if we left all of this alone. But, I'm down if you're down. What do you want to do?”
The students glanced at each other, Adam had already voiced his opinion—he wanted to leave. Britney grimaced and shuddered, terrified. Stephen was stern and worried, but he would follow Charlene to the depths of hell if she asked.
Charlene said, “We'll take a quick look around, then we'll call the cops.” She glanced over at Stephen, then at Britney. She said, “You guys can leave if you want. I don't want to drag you into any trouble.”
Stephen responded, “I'll... I'll stick around. I sold weed to her, remember? If something happened, I need to know if it had anything to do with me.”
Britney took a deep breath, then she said, “I can't leave without you, Charlene. You know that. I'll wait here, but I'm not going to look around. I–I'm not going to get involved.”
Charlene said, “Okay, that's fine. The rest of us will take a look. Let's just try not to touch anything.”
***
Adam approached the bed. He tried to straighten the red bed sheets with his foot. He noticed the dark specks contrasting against the sheets—blood. The blood even stained the wooden frame of the bed and dripped down to the floor. He assumed the struggle started on her mattress. Just like Melanie, she was cut multiple times on her bed.
The young man knelt down at the foot of the bed, as if he were about to pray before going to sleep. He checked under the bed—nothing out of the ordinary.
Adam said, “She was probably stabbed over here. You know, she was probably texting or calling someone when the bastard crept up behind her and shanked her.”
As he examined the nugget of weed on the dresser, Stephen said, “She was probably smoking. She was high when she was attacked.”
“Yeah? How do you know that?”
“I'm not 100-percent positive, but it just looks like it. I sold her two dime-bags a few days ago and there's only one here. Her pipe is missing, too. So, she probably packed a bowl, laid up in bed, and smoked her shit.”
Charlene nodded and said, “I think you're right. The killer stabbed her on the bed. Hailey put up a fight and wrestled with him. She tried to run, but he just pulled her back. She bumped into the chair, knocked it over, then she fell down here. He stabbed her until she died.”
Stephen said, “Yeah, that works. But, where's the pipe?”
Adam asked, “No, man, where's the body?”
The teenagers glanced at each other, thinking about the clues and the questions. Two significant pieces of evidence were missing from the crime scene. They would have loved to find her phone, but the body and the pipe were known variables in the equation—they needed them to find the solution.
Britney pointed at the floor and said, “Look. The blood, it leads to the... the closet.”
Indeed, a trail of blood led to the closet to Charlene's left. Charlene glanced at her friends and nodded, communicating without uttering a word—I'm opening it. With a trembling hand, she pulled the door open. Charlene and Britney gasped and staggered while Adam and Stephen gaped at the closet—wide mouths and bulging eyes.
As the door swung open, Hailey's body fell forward and landed face-first in front of the closet. As speculated, the teenage girl's torso was riddled with stab wounds. At the small of her back, her white shirt was soaked in blood. Her palms were also sliced, as if she had grabbed the killer's blade in order to stop the attack. The pipe was nowhere in sight, though.
Wheezing as if she were out of breath, Britney stuttered, “Th–That's... That's Hailey. Oh, God. Sh–She's dead. He killed her!”
Adam sternly said, “Keep your voice down. It won't look good if we get caught with a dead body here.”
“What? Are you... Are you fucking kidding me right now? She's dead. There's a dead body right in front of us!”
Eyes full of tears, Charlene grabbed Britney's wrists and turned her away from the bloody sight. She gazed into Britney's bloodshot eyes. Again, she communicated without uttering a sound—it's okay, I'm here. She even caressed her cheek, trying to reassure her with her gentle touch.
Britney shook her head and mumbled indistinctly, unable to control herself. She fell into Charlene's arms and buried her face in her friend's chest as she sobbed.
Charlene glanced over at Adam and asked, “What do we do now?”
Adam shrugged—I don't know.
Stephen took a deep breath, then he said, “The pipe. Um... We have to find the pipe.”
Charlene responded, “The pipe isn't important. We have to call the police. We have to tell–” She stopped as Stephen approached the body. She asked, “What are you doing?”
Stephen grimaced as he shoved his foot under Hailey's arm. He tried to lift his foot, but she was too heavy. So, Adam shoved his foot under her thigh and helped. Together, the young men lifted their legs and carefully flipped Hailey onto her back. The group shared a gasp of shock and disgust.
Charlene held Britney's face closer to her chest and said, “Don't look. Whatever you do, don't look.”
Hailey's face was horribly mutilated. Her cheeks and lips were swollen and bruised. Her nose was crushed, reduced to a bloody nub. Her left eye was swollen. Her right eye, however, suffered the most. Her glass marijuana pipe was shoved into her right eye socket. The bowl was still packed, so it was hot when the killer thrust it into her eye socket.
It appeared as if the killer tried to use the pipe as a makeshift spoon to scoop her eye out. He failed in removing her eye, but he was able to crush it.
As he held his shirt over his mouth, Stephen gagged and stuttered, “Th–There's... There's something in her... her mouth.”
“Grab it,” Adam directed, covering his mouth with his hand. Stephen glanced over at him with wide eyes—are you serious? Adam nodded and said, “Just cover your hand with your shirt and pull it out. I think it's a note.”
Stephen stared at Adam with a deadpan expression, then he glanced over at Charlene. He could see it in her eyes: she wanted him to reach into Hailey's mouth, too. He sighed in disappointment, then he covered his hand with his shirt. He grabbed the crumpled sheet of paper from the victim's mouth, then he shook his hand to unwrap the note.
“What does it say?” Charlene asked.
Stephen responded, “It's a... a hashtag. It says: #ForCasey.”
Adam asked, “Casey? Like, Casey Marshall? Does... Does that mean...”
“It means he recorded it,” Charlene said as she vacantly stared at the ceiling. “Yeah. He recorded it and he uploaded it with that hashtag. He did the same thing with Melanie. He probably did the same thing with the others, too.”
Aside from Britney's hysterical bawling—she could still hear the entire conversation after all—the group became quiet. They were stunned by the revelation. They could only wonder if the killer's rampage was over or if they were targets of his lust for blood.
Upon feeling the vibrations on her leg, Charlene pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She swiped the tears from her eyes and stared at the screen.
As she put the phone on speaker, she said, “It's Dominique.” She answered, “Dominique, we've been trying to call you all morning. Wh–Where are you? We... We have some bad news.”
<
br /> Sniveling, Dominique said, “Charles, he's dead. He's really dead.”
“What? What are you talking about? Who's dead?”
“M–Michael. They... They found his body over home-plate at the Kamala baseball field.”
Charlene took several deep breaths as she absorbed the information. If Michael is dead, she thought, the killer wasn't only after Tiffany and her friends. She could see the fear in all of her friends' eyes, but she remained strong.
As a tear streamed down her cheek, Charlene asked, “Are you at the field right now?”
“Y–Yes. There's a huge crowd out here. Police, paramedics, news reporters... Everyone is out here.”
“We're going to be right there, okay? Wait for us in the parking lot.”
“O–Okay, Charlene. Please, come as fast as possible. I don't want to be here all alone. This is... This is just so scary.”
Charlene said, “I'll be there in a minute. Stay strong, sweetie.”
She hung up the phone and stared at her friends, waiting for someone to take command. To her dismay, her friends remained quiet. Their eyes wandered around the room, refusing to look down at Hailey.
Charlene coughed to clear her throat, then she said, “You all heard it: Michael is dead. That means we're in trouble, too. We can't stand around here and wait to die, though. We need to start moving.”
Stephen asked, “So, what do we do now?”
“We're going to do exactly as I say. Two of us will go meet with Dominique at the baseball field and the other two will stay here and deal with... this.”
Puffy-eyed, Britney shook her head and said, “Charlene, we can't tell her grandmother about this. It would break her heart. I... I can't hurt her like that. Damn it, why is this happening to us? What did we do to deserve this?”
Charlene responded, “Okay. Whoever stays won't have to tell her. Just call the cops anonymously and tell them everything. Wait until they arrive, then leave and meet us at Big's Burgers in an hour. Okay?” The teenagers nodded in agreement—okay. Charlene asked, “So, who's staying and who's going?”