Chapter 7
Bereavement
They say that the greatest changes in life occur when least expected. A professional ballerina dancer, after more than several years of practice and exercise, can alter the entire course of her life when one day she jaywalks across the street and encounters a pedal-happy driver. A construction worker can find himself in a hospital bed with broken joints when he inadvertently carries more than the human body ever should. A head chef of a five star restaurant can find herself fleeing for Argentina when one day, instead of using turmeric in her cooking, she mistakenly uses rat poison. And a sweet, innocent sixteen year old girl can return to Elsinore Academy the day after the death of Tommy Hargrave only to be in the presence of eager policemen who might just as soon realize that Alex Frost might not be so sweet and innocent after all.
Aunt Melanie entered the school’s driveway, stunned at the over-abundance of men and women in police uniforms (though there were more men than women) directing where each student should go. At first she thought she’d stumbled into the wrong place. But the name on the building told her otherwise. It was Elsinore Academy alright. Although the campus felt less like a school, and more like an occupation.
“What’s going on?” Aunt Melanie questioned Alex all-the-while maintaining her eyes at the cop cars that filled the parking lots.
“I don’t know,” came Alex, though she knew full well what was going on. She shook her head at herself for not having thought of it earlier.
“Is this about that boy in your school? The one that was murdered?”
Alex nodded. That was precisely what it was about.
“I think they’re going to see if anyone he knew knows what happened.”
Aunt Melanie latched Alex onto the passenger seat with her arm. “Are you sure you’re good to go to school?”
Alex paused for a moment, considered her two available options. Option one being the following; step out from Aunt Melanie’s car, go to school, face the attention of the police and risk them piecing together the truth. Or option two; leave the school grounds, avoid unnecessary police attention, hope that nobody realizes her absence.
Unfortunately, as convenient as option two would have been, it was also just as entirely unlikely that nobody would notice her premature absence. Aunt Melanie’s Suzuki Vitara lit up like a beacon amongst the crowds of youth aristocrats, and it was already on the driveway. There was no hiding Alex’s presence. To leave now would have only invoked suspicion.
“I’ll be fine,” she promised her aunt and stepped off her car.
“You sure?”
No. “Yes.”
Alex shut the front passenger door on Aunt Melanie’s Vitara; it would be the final nail in her coffin if things ended sourly.
Aunt Melanie drove away, leaving Alex to fend herself from the prows of Suburnia’s finest.
“Hello young girl,” a policeman came up. “Why don’t go you wait in the cafeteria?”
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Please. Go to the cafeteria. Everything will be explained there.”
Alex followed a flock of students dressed in uniform marching robotically into Elsinore Academy’s large cafeteria room. There, she saw the entire campus on lunch tables, crowding together to the point that many had to sit on the floor or stand on corners.
A tall, brooding policeman with a cleft chin towered in judgment over Alex.
“Alexandra Frost?” he inquired.
“That’s me,” she replied rather nervously.
“Come with me please.” Though it didn’t sound like a request.
Alex took her school bag, and followed the policeman into Principal McLeary’s office. There, in the large space of the room was the very same woman she saw on the television just yesterday. The woman they referred to as the Suburnia police chief.
“Ms. Ludwig,” was how she introduced herself. “But call me Tanya,” giving Alex a first name to go with the last.
She was seated on Principal McLeary’s desk, her back enjoying the expensive leather upholstery of his chair. Her hair was jet black, and she was shorter in real life than her television appearance would have led one to believe. In fact, Alex could easily attest to being at least a few centimeters taller. On top of that, the police chief was also very young. She couldn’t have been anything past her early thirties, if even that.
Standing beside Ms. Ludwig on her left was Principal McLeary, eyeing the police chief, but more specifically, the seat that she had taken from him. He was sweating a little, and Alex sensed that his knees were stiffening because he’d been standing for far too long.
To the police chief’s right was the same detective she had met last week the night that her parents were killed. She knew he’d given her his name, but for some reason or another she failed to recall what it was.
And finally, standing by the doorway was the policeman that had brought her to the principal’s office, his cleft chin raised high, his hands bound together behind his back, his legs spread apart.
“Please, sit,” the police chief, Ms. Tanya Ludwig pointed her hand onto a seat directly opposite to the principal’s desk.
Alex obeyed.
“You are Alexandra Frost. Am I correct?”
“That’s right,” she tried to say in her most provocative display of depression. In a time like this, it was best to make things as uncomfortable as she could. The less confident and observant she could make them, the better.
“First, I want to say that I am truly sorry for what happened to your parents. I hear that they were good people.”
“They were,” Alex moped, though she had no comprehension of what good was, just that it was something people liked to be called. She also had to stop and think about how the police chief would have even come to know such a thing. Maybe she had asked someone, or more likely, she was just saying it out of formality.
“We’ll get through this as quickly as we can,” said Tanya. And then, the questions began.
“Did you know Tommy Hargrave?” she started.
“Yes. But only through Amy, my friend.”
“Could you state her full name?”
“Amy Parker Lawson. We’re in the same grade. Actually, her legal name is Amanda. Amanda Parker Lawson.”
“Interesting. And how would you describe Amy’s relationship with Tommy Hargrave?”
“They were friends.”
“Interesting,” Tanya came again, though she seemed more fascinated now than she did the first time.
“What do you know of what happened to Tommy Hargrave?”
“Only what I saw on the news. Heard he was stabbed to death.” And to that, Alex sniffed, forced streaks of tears into her eyes. “Why is this happening? First my mom and dad, and now Tommy. Why is there so much death everywhere?”
There were several rules to avoiding suspicion. One of which, was to simply look as hysterical, and as emotionally vexed as can. Sitting in a room surrounded with authority, from principal to police, Alex incorporated this very rule into the way she behaved. And surprise surprise, it worked.
Principal McLeary’s office crowded with emotions of sadness, especially from Principal McLeary himself, who started dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.
“Ms. Frost, I understand that things are hard. But if you can endure for just a few more minutes, you would be helping us a lot.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Alex wiped the water running down her cheeks with a swipe of her finger.
“Good. Now, murders don’t happen in Suburnia very often. Because of that, and the similarities in causes of death, we believe that whoever killed Tommy Hargrave is somehow connected with the death of your parents.”
“What?” she cried. “You mean, it’s the same person? You mean like a-”
“We don’t know for sure, but it’s what us policemen call a hunch. Until then, we can’t think of it as anything more than a possibility.”
Tanya the poli
ce chief leaned closer t0wards the desk, her elbows propping her up.
“In the name of catching whoever did this, I have to ask you something.”
Shaking, Alex covered her eyes and shook her head ceaselessly.
“I can’t. Please, I can’t. All this stress, I just can’t take it.”
But Tanya the police chief asked away, as though in truth she didn’t care one way or another about a mourning girl. That all she cared about was her job, and that Alex, much like everyone else around her, was purely a means to fulfilling her duties.
“Do you think that whoever did this could have caused Tommy’s death?”
“I don’t know,” she whined and shivered. “I’m having nightmares enough just thinking about it. Why can’t you find out for yourself?”
“We need your help on this Alexandra. I want you to go back to the day you found your parents. Can you tell us anything that might help us find out who did it?”
“I can’t! Please, just leave me alone. How would you feel if the people you loved died?!” she shot heatedly at Tanya.
“I would feel very bad,” answered Tanya, seeming entirely calm and collected. Clearly, she’d put no thought to the question at hand. “But that is why we need whatever help you can provide us. So that nobody else will ever have to lose someone they love.”
Alex sat tight on her chair.
“I want to help. I really do.” Her voice weak, sobbish. “But I never saw him. I wasn’t there when he,” she paused. “And you know what? I’m glad I never saw him. He would have killed me just like...just like...just like them. Wherever that monster is, all I want is to stay as far away from him as I possibly can.”
“Let’s stop this,” Principal McLeary urged. “We’re not going to get any answers from a crying girl. And when am I going to have my school back?”
“This is only going to take a day,” assured the police chief. “We have plenty more inquiries to make.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? You come in here without warning, question everybody in my academy without my permission. Your policemen can’t just march around here like soldiers.”
“I suggest you settle down,” said the tempered police chief to Principal McLeary, as though his outrage wasn’t much more than a part of her daily routine; something she had long gotten used to in her line of work.
“That’s okay,” cut in the detective standing on the police chief’s right. “You can go.”
Alex froze her tears. All eyes turned to him.
“Here’s my card,” he concluded. “Whenever you feel well enough to talk, you let me know.”
The police chief lowered her eyes, a sign that she didn’t appreciate the man’s taking over of the scene. The detective, not caring one way or another, reached into his breast pocket, fished out a card with his name printed on the center.
Detective Jared Peterson, it said.
“Thank you,” Alex said. She picked herself up and motioned out of the room. The tall, cleft-chinned policeman standing by the entryway opened the door behind him and let her pass.
“Before you go,” called Tanya immediately as Alex took a step outside. Alex spun around.
“I wanted to thank you for doing your best. Keep safe.”
Alex looked the oriental woman once more in the face, dressed with her tear-ridden eyes.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful.”
But Tanya dropped her empathy act, caring no more about what Alex had to say than she would have if she had instead decided to read her a recipe for tomato soup. The woman simply placed her eyes on the principal’s table before her, scouring over anonymous pieces of paper.
After leaving the company of Tanya the unsympathetic police chief, Alex made an exit through the south corridor of the campus. Upon turning down the hall, she was completely alone with no one to see or notice her. The sobby expression on her face disappeared in the blink of an eye like magic, replaced with the true blankness that was Alex Frost.
She waited by the school parking lot along with a few other students all waiting for their parents to come pick them up. By the troubled composures that occupied their faces, it was evident that they were silently feeling sorry for one Tommy Hargrave, sixteen year old student and athlete at Elsinore Academy. She wasn’t surprised. He had always been a popular student in school, and no doubt had a lot of friends within the Elsinore community (or at the very least, people who liked to think they were his friends).
While their minds drifted to the few or many shared memories they had with their fellow classmate, Alex’s was focused on driver’s licenses, and how she should apply for one soon so she could legally drive.
As she laid her bottom on the curb, patiently waiting for Aunt Melanie to meet her, she realized that the few around her with heads hung low and bodies scrunched downwards were doing something that Alex had never been able to do; mourn. Sympathy and regret marked their faces; coldness and loneliness their shivering arms. All this for a boy that they didn’t fully understand. If word ever got out about the things that Tommy Hargrave had done to Amy, to the other girls before her, would they still feel sadness over his death?
And this brought Alex to a second point. The students dejected over Tommy’s death had no knowledge of his darker desires, and at the very most, couldn’t have been associated with him for anything more than a couple of years. Yet Alex, after having known her parents for all of her life, was unable to muster a single emotion regarding their passing. She felt obligated to feel for them, but felt nothing more than what she truly felt, which was nothing at all.
Alex called Aunt Melanie again, and asked how long it would be until she arrived.
“Traffic on the way back doesn’t look good,” Aunt Melanie said over the phone. “Give it at least half an hour.”
Alex hung up. A few students exiting the school grounds made their way to O’Mallery Park, where supposedly much commotion was said to preside. Alex, curious to see her work displayed, followed them for the five minute walk into the park.
As it turned out, the word commotion was putting the event at the O’Mallery Park far too lightly. Lines of police tape cornered the trees and stop signs, keeping at bay a crowd of people and anxious journalists alike taking pictures, asking questions to whatever policemen they could find guarding and passing the crime scene.
Questions of “Who did this? Was it a man? Was it a woman? Was it just one person? What about two? Or three? Do you have any suspects? Do you have any leads? What is the progress of the investigation? Has the killer left a note? Are there any demands? Will you catch the killer? Where do you think the killer comes from? Why do you think he or she is doing this? When will this stop? Who is involved in the investigation? Who do you think should be involved in the investigation? What do the parents have to say? What does the school have to say? What do the victim’s friends have to say? Any specifics on how he was killed? Where was he stabbed? With what? At precisely what hour? What was he wearing? Did the killer leave behind a note? What time is it? Does the pizza place on Mayo Street do deliveries? Can you spare some change? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” all filled the air both loudly and simultaneously. As a result, the questions were incomprehensible, sounding more like a sea of gibberish than anything to be found in the English language.
After one good look at the policemen and journalistic truth seekers, Alex felt she had more than enough.