Chapter 11
I was having breakfast in the kitchen when a police cruiser parked outside our house. My dad was on his way out to work but stopped to greet Chief Harris and then they came in together. My mother wiped her hands on a towel.
‘Good morning John, Good morning Ruth. I am here to tell you I will need to talk to John later today about what happened. I need more details. If you could, bring him over to the station after school. By then I should have looked at Tom’s bike, which they are bringing down now.’
‘No problem, we will drive him over,’ said Dad.
Chief Harris left and I got ready to go to school.
‘Come on John, I’ll give you a ride.’
‘Thanks dad, but Brooke is picking me any minute now.’
I could see he was about to say something, but then changed his mind and just shook his head and walked out to his car. As he drove away, I kissed my mom goodbye and Brooke drove up outside.
‘Good morning handsome,’ she said.
‘Good morning to you, honey.’
‘Did you sleep well, or did you stay awake after I left?’
‘I fell asleep almost immediately; you take all my strength away when we make love Brooke,’ I said with a wink. She giggled and squeezed my leg while driving with her other hand.
At school I met Mike before class.
‘How are you doing buddy?’ I asked him.
‘Not good John, my mom had to give me a sleeping pill last night. Hey, did Chief Harris come by your place this morning?’
‘Yes, he did. He wants me in his office after school, my dad will take me there.’
‘Can I go with you, he wants me there too, but my dad and mom can’t get off work that time, but they said they would meet me there.’
‘Sure you can,’ I said, and we walked off to class.
After school, I was standing outside with Mike waiting for my dad when Brooke walked up to us.
‘What are you doing here with Mike, John? Why didn’t you wait by my car?’
‘Oh shit. I forgot to tell you. My dad is picking us up, Chief Harris wants to see us in his office this afternoon, something to do with the accident.’
She was quiet for a second, scanning the school yard behind her sunglasses. She turned back to us and said.
‘OK. I will talk to you later, honey. Then you can tell me what the Chief has found out.’ She kissed my cheek and walked off toward her car.
‘I’m sorry about this buddy, but there is something seriously off with that girl. She is cold as ice. I mean, she knew Tom a little, but it’s like nothing has happened.’
Then I remembered something I wanted to ask Mike.
‘Listen Mike, could you do me a favor. Could you look on the internet to see if you can find anything about a family in Nevada? Their last name is Richards. Their names are; James the father, Maria the mother and Mia the daughter. I know it’s a long shot, but you are better than me at searching the internet.’
‘No sweat, I should know something tonight, I will call or text you.’
At that moment my dad arrived and we left for Chief Harris’ office.
The Chief’s office was a large room with a big desk. There were a few diplomas on the wall and a gun case with several weapons. There was even an old bow and arrow with feathers on it hanging on one wall by the window.
‘Thank you for coming. I am sorry to bring you in, but last night I talked to Tom’s father and because of the information he gave me, I decided to have a better look at Tom’s bike. Tom’s father told me that he had all the brake cables renewed in June, so the bike would be ready for the summer. He replaced all the old cables with the best there is on the market.’ He opened his desk drawer and took out two cables with rubber sleeves.
‘These are the front and back brake cables that I took off Tom’s bike this morning. Take a look at the edges.’
We lean forward and looked closely, at first I didn’t notice anything unusual, the cables are a little frayed, but nothing else. Then I saw that some of the strands were a lot shorter than others. I look at Mike and his facial expression told me he had noticed it too.
‘Now, look at this.’ the Chief continued, and pulled back the rubber a bit, exposing more cable. I looked and I could clearly see small cut marks.
‘Looks like someone did some damage to these cables, and this one has the same markings. I have decided this is now a murder investigation. Someone has cut these wires deliberately, the brakes failed, thus causing the death of Tom. I met with Tom’s parents earlier today and told them about my findings. As you can imagine they are devastated, but finding out it was murder makes it even worse. I asked them if they could think of any reason why someone might want to see Tom dead. They said that their son had no enemies as far as they know.’
The Chief looked at us and contined, ‘Can you think of anyone who would want to kill Tom?’
Mike and I shook our heads.
‘Have you had a chance to check his email account and his computer?’ asked Mike’s dad.
‘That’s what we are going to do next, but according to his parents, Tom didn’t spend much time on his computer.’
‘I can tell you the same, internet, and chatting was not something Tom liked to do, and he was an outdoors kind of guy anyway,’ Mike added.
There was a knock on the door and Mike’s father walked in.
‘Have I missed something?’
Chief Harris told him briefly what he had told us.
‘I’ll be dammed, murdered you say? There hasn’t been a murder in this town in years.’
‘Thank god for that. Anyway, that’s all for now, if I need something else I will call you.’
As we were leaving and walked past the reception area, I saw Mr. Jones, who had the garage in town talk to the policeman behind the desk.
‘I want to report one of my Quads stolen, a 500cc blue Suzuki. It was there last night, and this morning it was gone,’ he said.
I turned to Mike.
‘Didn’t you think it was a 500cc we heard last night?’
‘Yeah, I did. It was kind of far away, but I am pretty sure.’
Mike and I walked up to Mr. Jones and the policeman and I said,
‘We were up in the mountains last night, and we heard what we thought, was a 500cc Quad.’
‘What time was that?’ Mr. Jones asked.
‘Around eleven or eleven thirty, I guess.’
‘That sounds about right, I was in the garage at ten, and all the Quads were there.’
Mr. Jones thanked us for the information and we said goodbye and Mike got into his dads car.
During the ride back with my father we didn’t speak, but when we were almost at home, he said, ‘How are you feeling John?’
‘I am OK, dad. I mean not OK that Tom is dead, but the worst of the shock is over. It’s just hard to believe that I have lost one of my best friends.’
‘I guess Brooke stayed late last night?’
I felt a bit guilty; the memories from the previous night still lingred in my mind.
‘Yeah, she did. It was nice to have her there though.’
‘I can imagine that. I don’t want to sound like an old record, John, but you seriously have to think about what you guys are going to do when she turns eighteen.’
‘I know, I know.’
We arrived at the house, and went inside. I told my parents I was going up to my room to call Brook. Amy cames running from her room and gave me a big hug.
‘I liked Tom and I am going to miss him a lot,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
When I called Brooke she didn’t answer so I left a message. She called me back fifteen minutes later.
‘Hi, how did it go at the police station?’ She asked.
‘Not too good. The chief says someone cut Tom’s brake cables, which makes it murder.’
‘Murder? Who would want to murder Tom?’
‘I have no idea, and neither does anyone else. The stran
ge thing is that someone stole a Quad from Mr. Jones last night, and we heard it up on the mountain. It could be that the murderer stole the Quad, and followed us up there. Then while we were asleep, cut the cables.’
‘Come on John, you really believe that? It could just be some other kids who stole it and went on a joy ride at night.’
‘Maybe you are right, I don’t know. Anyway, do you want to meet later?’
‘Sorry John, I can’t. I’ve got things to do, exams and such. I’m sorry but I won’t be able to see you today.’
‘Now who is playing hard to get?’ I asked her
‘I am not playing hard to get, I just have so many things to do, that’s all.’
We said goodbye and I laid down on the bed. I woke up an hour later when the phone rang.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi John, it's Mike, you need to get over here now, don’t ask, just get over here.’ He hung up before I could say a word. He did sound stressed and which was not the Mike I knew. I went down, and told my parents I was going to Mike’s, but that I would be back for dinner.
Mike was outside waiting for me when I arrived. He dragged me up to his room, and closed the door. I waited for him to tell me what was so urgent. His fingers flew over the keyboard of his computer.
‘Come and read this,’ he said.
I walked over to his desk, and pulled up a chair. On the screen there was a newspaper article from the Townsville News.
‘They found three dead bodies in a burnt out house,’ said Mike. I looked at him, ‘So what’s so important about that?’
‘John, you are not reading all of it, read the last paragraph.’
I read it out loud.
‘The bodies were identified as James Richards, Maria Richards and their daughter Mia. The fourth person living with them, seventeen year old Amanda Richards was not found. Amanda Richard was James Richards’s niece, who came to stay with them after her parents were murdered in an unsolved shooting, which occurred in their house in Los Angeles one year ago. Amanda Richards is 5’ 9”, has long blonde hair, and green eyes. The police are also on the look out for a silver colored Mercedes Benz 230 SLK, who belonged to James Richard.’
Mike was sweating and said, ‘John, Brooke is Amanda Richards. She lied to you; she said her parents were on a business trip but they are dead! Her uncle and family were killed in a fire, she didn’t tell you that either.’
I just stared at the screen. I didn’t know what to think or say. Brooke meant everything to me; I had even thought about running away with her. Now, it seemed that everything she had told me was a big ugly lie.
‘We have to go to the police, John.’
‘Wait a second, I want to talk to her first, and maybe she has an explanation.’
‘Stop thinking with your heart, she is a liar, and we have to tell the police.’
‘I still love her, and I owe her the opportunity to explain.’
‘Fine, you do what you have to do, but I am calling the cops.’
‘No, don’t call the cops, I will talk to her, and then you can call, OK?’
‘Fine.’
Mike turned back to his computer and I ran down the stairs and back home.
On the way home I took out my cell phone and dialed Brooks’s number, she did’n't answer, so I left here a message.
I hadn’t been home for more than a few minutes when she called me back.
‘I need to see you right now; I am coming over to your place. What’s the address?’ I said.
‘Wait John, you can’t come over now. Where are you, I will come to you’
‘I’ll see you at my house, please hurry.’
‘What’s so important?’ asked Brook, ‘I was in the middle of studying.’
We were sitting on the wall outside my house. She was dressed in sweats and had her hair in a pony tail.
‘Brook, I just read an article from a newspaper in Nevada about your uncle and his family dying in a fire. The article also mentions an Amanda Richards who used to live there with your uncle, and disappeared along with a Mercedes Benz 230 SLK convertible.’ As I finish the sentence I looked over at the 230 SLK parked in front of us.
‘Also,’ I continued, ‘the article mentioned that Amanda Richards parents were shot and killed in their house in Los Angeles a year ago. Brooke, please tell me what’s going on.’
She was still looking at me, there was a slight twitch in her left eyebrow and she was playing with her fingers.
‘OK, you got me. I am Amanda Richards, so what? What’s the difference, all you want is to have sex with me, you don’t care about me, and you don’t love me. I don’t need to give you any explanation.’
‘Brooke, you know that’s not true, I love you. But right now, Mike wants to call the police and I think it would be better if we went together.’
‘How come Mike knows about this. Have you told him?’ Now she was angry and I could see her features change. There was something menacing in the way she looked at me. She moved closer, her face just inches from mine, her hands gripped my upper arm, and she squeezed hard.
‘Are you a snitch John, are you a little boy that runs and tells about other people? Do you know what happens to snitches? They get hurt!’ The last words she spat out, I could feel the saliva on my face. I pulled my arms away, and stood up.
‘What’s your fucking problem Brooke, or Amanda or whoever the hell you are! I am trying to help you.’
The door to the house opened, and my dad asked if everything was OK. I turn towards him. ‘Nothing Dad, everything is fine.’ When I turned around to Brooke, she was already in her car. She slammed the door shut and she took off with the tires screaming. All I could do was to watch the tail lights disappear. I didn’t know what to do, and I needed help so I decided to go back inside and tell my parents.