"I am not on active duty, no.”
"Then I think it would be best not to poke around in matters that don't concern you," Peter said venomously.
He turned from the windows to face me. His forehead creased while his eyes pierced into my gut. He wasn't even denying it, simply warning me to mind my own business. Did Peter have something to hide?
"So, you know something or you don't?" I asked, my body rigid.
Peter checked his watch and strode toward the door. "I'm afraid I have to cut this short. I have a meeting shortly and need to prepare."
Liquid courage exploded inside of me. “Don’t brush me aside, Peter. Just tell me the fucking truth!”
I thought maybe I could handle the booze, but now it appeared the booze was handling me.
Peter narrowed his eyes. “Are you drunk?”
“No, of course not.” My voice trembled.
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to call security, Elle. Sorry, but this is ridiculous. You can’t just come to someone’s place of work, drunk as all hell, and accuse them of this shit.”
I rose from my seat, despite the sinking suspicions zooming in and out of my mind, weighing heavily on my consciousness.
I walked out of the doorway and turned around. Peter and I stood nose to nose. “I’m going to find out what happened to Callie whether you like it or not.”
Peter snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure you will. A drunk put on administrative leave because she couldn't keep her shit together. I’m sure your dead fiancé would be so proud.”
In the next moment, instinct took over and relinquished any control I had over my body. I raised my fist, cocked it back and released it full-force against Peter’s cheek.
He stumbled backward with a look of awe plastered across his bruising face. “You’re fucking insane! Kate, call security and the police immediately!” Peter shouted.
I scurried out of Peter’s office knowing one thing for sure: I may have just hopped on the bad side of one of the most powerful men in Keygate.
Twenty-Three
The next morning, I pulled on the same black dress I'd worn for Carin's funeral, only now I would be attending Callie's funeral. I planned to come home for one and ended up appearing at two. Dread filled me to my core like lead. It was one thing to say goodbye to a woman who carried many more years under her belt versus a girl who hadn't had a chance to live a long life.
I pressed ruby red lipstick against my mouth in an even line. When I woke up, my hands shook fervently, but after a few sips from the water bottle beside my bed, my body evened out.
This time around, my mom and stepfather would join me. Silence blanketed the house as we all dressed for the somber occasion. With each beat of my heart, pain pumped through my veins. Callie was too young. She should have been buried in books, not the ground.
"Elle, are you ready?" my mom called from downstairs.
I finished applying my mascara, then reached for the water bottle and drank the remaining few drops. After smoothing my dress in the mirror, I popped a few pieces of gum into my mouth. A few strands of hair wouldn't play nicely, so I grabbed a bobby pin from the dresser and pinned them back.
There. That's about as good as it's going to get.
I hurriedly skipped steps as I rushed down the stairs where my mom and stepdad were waiting for me by the front door, keys and purse in hand.
"You look lovely," Jack said.
I smiled weakly. “Thanks."
I sat in the backseat on the way to the funeral home. It was a different funeral home than where Carin's service was held, but another reputable home nonetheless. My mom and Jack twittered about in the car, discussing this and that, both trying to avoid the subject lingering in the air: Callie's funeral.
Finally, as we pulled in, my mom turned to me from the passenger seat. "Have you heard anything else besides what's in the papers about Callie?”
I cleared my throat. "No, but I'm working on it. On, um, my own.”
My mom nodded and didn't press any further. She understood all too well the challenges of having a smaller police department with diminished resources and, sometimes, limited knowledge. Growing up, there was a brief period when a man stalked my mom. It started out of the blue, and she hadn't recognized him. She didn't know where he lived or came from, but he'd wait in the driveway for her to leave for work. He worked out at the same gym. He even sent her flowers one year for Valentine's Day.
When she called to make a formal complaint, the department didn't take it seriously. Only once did they send an officer to patrol the neighborhood. The stalking continued, even after my mom switched up her routine. Again, the police department wasn't much help.
It didn't take long for me, a determined ten-year-old, to take matters into my own hands. One morning during summer vacation, I saw the man in our driveway. He didn't look as scary as I originally thought he would. He looked like any other man in our neighborhood: average height, clean-shaven, and a little belly seemingly from one too many beers before bed.
When my mom left for work, the man stared after her from the safety of my bedroom window. From what she said, the man never did anything but watch her, and he never approached the house or cared much about me. But that morning, I wanted to put an end to my mother's anxiety about the man. I grabbed a BB gun my friend lent me.
I hurried out of the house and followed the man down the street. I loaded the gun with as many BBs as I could manage. Then, without warning, I started shooting him with a remarkably accurate aim for a young girl. I hit him in the back, the legs, his arms, even his neck. He whipped around to see me standing there with a venomous grin on my face.
"Leave my mama alone, jerk face," I said. "Or the next time I see you, I'll have something stronger than BBs."
Looking back, I realized how dangerous it was for me to approach the man, but he did not retaliate against me or my mom. Instead, he left us alone, never to be seen in our driveway again.
It was this day I realized I wanted to go into law enforcement.
Outside the funeral home, dozens of Keygate citizens lined up to pay their respects. I expected a crowd, but nothing quite like this. It was always an even more extraordinary tragedy when a young person died, reminding everyone of their mortality and the mortality of the younger people in their lives.
I vaguely recognized a vast array of Callie's friends in line too, many of them from the neighborhoods surrounding ours. She may have been one of the first of her peers to pass away. And quite possibly the only person they would ever know to be murdered.
Younger people thought—no, they knew—they were invincible, incapable of being in the same realm as tragedy. When something horrible inevitably happened at your doorstep, it was a shock beyond this world. Realization would dawn: No, I'm not untouchable. Bad things can and will happen to me. Luckily for these kids, they weren't the ones murdered. Not that it made them feel any better.
There were several teachers from high school waiting their turn too. Some I recognized as veterans of the education world, while others I remembered as student teachers during my time at Keygate High.
If I didn't know any better, I'd guess nearly the whole town came out for the funeral. As melancholy as it felt to be in line to say goodbye to a young girl I bonded with so many years ago, it renewed my drive to find out what happened to her. To bring her justice. To let her rest in peace.