My next call was more intimidating. With trembling hands, I pulled up the familiar contact and hit the call button for Charlie’s phone. I didn’t actually expect the thief to answer, but some tiny part of me held out hope they’d surprise me. After five rings, it went to voicemail, and I once again heard my boy’s voice. “Hey, it’s Charlie, you can leave a message but remember no post on Sundays.”
After hanging up, I began to text again.
You can answer me. Are you there?
I’m not just going to give up. You owe me an explanation.
I want his phone back, if you come forward now, I won’t press charges.
Hello????
Do you even care how much this is tormenting me?
Finally, an ellipsis signaled across the screen… he was typing again. I held my breath as I awaited whatever might come next.
Im not trying 2 but I wish U’d stop texting. I don’t know what 2 say.
Tell me your name.
I cant...
Are you a student from Cooper?
I don’t like 2 talk about myself. U should talk to real people tho, not me.
I was around real people yesterday. Where are you right now?
I’m laying on a roof, looking at the clouds.
What roof? Are you at Cooper?
No.
Where?
Heaven. Thats what I pretend up here anyway
If I could just keep him talking, eventually he’d drop enough clues I’d be able to track him down. I was now convinced this had to be a kid, and kids might think they’re smarter than their teacher, but that was pure fantasy. I needed to push for more details.
What’s heaven like?
Real heaven? Beautiful. There r angels and flowers everywhere.
No one yells and fights and u don’t have to hide from anything bad. In heaven you dont have to ask for protection because they dont let any bad people in.
Like, what kind of bad things would you have to hide from here in the real world?
All the dark stuff...
Such as the shooting?
I guess, and all the other ways people hurt u.
I felt a chill. I’d grown convinced the thief was definitely a student, one who had been in the science room when the shooting happened. This exchange was taking an odd turn though, I reread the exchange and kept focusing on Yeah and all the other ways people hurt u.”
I’m not going to pretend you’re Charlie, but I’d like to call you something. What name do you want me to use?
IDK i guess u can just call me C.
Is the C for Charlie or is it for your real name?
IDK, I just want u to use it
C I’m not mad, I was at first but I promise I’m not now. I need to know something, has someone hurt you?
No I have to go now.
C you can tell me the truth.
U don’t really care.
Yes, I do. I’m a teacher. If someone is hurting you it can stop.
No one really cares. No one even sees me.
But someday I will make it stop myself.
How?
I have a gun 2
Do you really? Okay this has gone too far, tell me your name.
C… are you there?
I began to pace, trying to decide what to do next, when I remembered the police officer from the night before. Digging into my purse, I found his card. Lieutenant Dan Morris. I’d gotten the distinct impression he thought I was half off my rocker when we’d met, and I wasn’t feeling very optimistic as I dialed his number.
“Lieutenant Morris, can I help you?”
“Yes, well, hello. This is Nell Sanger, we uh, met last night at Cooper Middle.”
There was a pause and then in a cautious tone, he replied, “Yes, hello Ms. Sanger. Were you able to reach anyone at the school?”
“Not exactly, to be honest, I haven't tried yet. But there’s been a situation I think you should be aware of. I’m not quite sure how to handle it,” I explained.
“Situation? Ma’am, like we told you last night, your best bet is to reach someone—”
I cut him off. “I know what you told me, things have changed, and I need your help. The police still help people, correct?”
He sighed, then said, “All right, tell me what’s happened.”
“It’s easier to show you, can I come down to the station and meet you?” I asked
“All right, I won’t be in until after 1:00, though. When you come in, let the guy at the desk know you’re there to see me and I’m expecting you.”
I heard the doubt in his voice, but I knew that if I could just show him the texts, he would better understand. I wasn’t thrilled about going back into that station, but that teacher part of my brain indelibly interwoven with that mother part, recognized the faint buzz of alarm that my mystery texter had sounded.
21
There is the sanity you feel, and there is the sanity you display. Most people don’t really care about the first one; they just wanted permission to avoid your crisis. For the first time in months, I sat at my vanity and opened my make-up bag. The woman who stared back at me wasn’t exactly a stranger, she was someone I spied from a moving bus window who I thought I might recognize but couldn’t quite place. My cheekbones were more pronounced, the hollows beneath them were new. Dark circles hung from my heavily lidded eyes. Where before, a few grey strands had appeared, now wiry silver tendrils had completely overtaken the new growth at my temples. I needed work.
My face eagerly drank the moisturizer it had been deprived of for too long, then with the dab of a foundation laced sponge, the light brush of blusher, a few strokes of mascara and a smudge of neutral lipstick, I watched my face emerge from the ghost in the mirror. I needed a haircut I noted dispassionately, but it was easy enough to pull the mane back into a simple, elegant clip, trying to ignore the shock of grey. Finally, I slipped into my normal parent-teacher conference uniform, dress pants and a casual blouse. There, totally sane looking.
At the station, I was led to a private room where Lieutenant Morris soon joined me. Sometimes large men were intimidating, simply by nature of their stature and girth. Lt. Morris wasn’t one of those men. He was about six feet tall and looked like a man who worked out regularly yet still had an extra ten stubborn pounds around his waist. His face made him seem approachable. I guessed him to be in his mid-40s, but there was something boyish about the soft curves of his cheeks and jawline. His blue eyes were kind and intelligent. He wasn’t exactly handsome; he was the sort of man who would easily blend into a crowd. I wouldn’t have really noticed him at a bar, nor would I have crossed the street to avoid him in the city.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Sanger. What can I do for you?” he asked in a steadying voice.
“Hello. Well, I have a situation…” I broke down what had happened, starting with the first message from “Charlie” after his death. I felt awkward opening myself up to this stranger about my darkest moment, but I knew he’d want to see the message chain and there was no point in trying to avoid that uncomfortable subject. After I explained my own desperate attempts to reach out and the initial response, I looked up to gauge his reaction. He was nodding and listening intently. If he felt any judgment, it didn’t show on his face.
I opened my message app and scrolled down to show him the latest messages. He took it from me and read it thoughtfully, but I couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Finally, he looked up and asked, “and the GPS location is always the school?”
I nodded. “Yes, I was just assuming that meant this kid was only texting from school grounds, even after hours, but it occurred to me last night that there could be another factor, so I googled and discovered phones can have fake locations listed, spoofing, and apparently this is well-known stuff in kid circles because they don’t want their parents tracking them. Now I think maybe that’s what’s been done here. Its location is just always set to Cooper.”
“It’s definitely a possibility,” he said. “We do dea
l with stolen phones pretty often, and this is one of the tricks they sometimes undertake. Usually not children this young though, I’m not saying they aren’t capable, it’s just not been the norm in my experience.”
He rested his chin on his hand and studied the messages again. “Have you reached out to your service provider?”
“No, not yet. To be honest, I feel like this all came to a head yesterday, and I went from being curious and irritated, to feeling like this might be something really serious.”
“Okay, I don’t want to keep you here too long, but would you mind waiting while I confer with someone else about this?”
I nodded and then waited for his return. When he finally reentered the room twenty minutes later, he was accompanied by a younger man in civilian clothes who shook my hand and introduced himself as a detective. Morris had explained the situation to him and he wanted to see the messages himself. Unlike Morris; he seemed impatient. When he began at the top, he paused and glanced at me and I had the distinct impression he was a little put out by the crazy lady taking up his valuable time. Still, he went back to reading, and then by the end, he had a different expression. Concern.
“I’m going to need your phone. We need a record of the messages and we may need to reach out to the child.” He turned to Morris and said, “School being out for summer both helps and hurts here, we don’t have to worry about lockdowns or other students being at risk, but it would be a lot easier to ask questions and get answers if we had every kid in one place.”
I interrupted. “Wait, no! I need my phone.” I felt a growing sense of panic; there were hundreds of photos on there of Charlie, hundreds of texts, emails, voicemails, snapchats. Stupidly, I hadn’t backed it up in years. I’d never paid to upgrade our Cloud space; whatever was on that phone would be lost forever if it was taken from me.
The detective began, “Ms. Sanger, we need—” but was cut off by Morris.
“Jim, I have an idea. Let’s get copies of the messages, and it seems to me the best way to reach out again is to let Ms. Sanger do it. She is well trained to communicate with children, this is her area of expertise, and her voice is authentic. Sticking someone on there to pretend to be her could backfire.”
My eyes widened at his defense and then relief flooded me when the detective grudgingly agreed. It was decided I would contact the child only when in the presence of Morris or one of the other authorities, and if the child reached out to me first, then I would contact them immediately. My role would begin right there, in the interview room.
Under Detective Fish’s direction, I sent my first text.
Hello C….
Are you there?
Three minutes passed and then the telltale ellipses showed on my screen.
Yeah
Good, what are you doing?
Just sitting in my room. He’s coming home again.
Your father?
C….
Its okay, I don’t know who you are so you can tell me the truth.
Dill was my friend.
I went cold. For a moment, I forgot to breathe. I stared at the screen and felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Morris standing beside me. He nodded and asked softly, “Do you need a break?”
I’d tried not to ever think of his name, his face, his life. It was more than not wanting to give him the power of living in my head, I’d worked hard to accept Charlie’s death was real, but I hadn’t been able to accept the violent nature of it. Better to imagine he’d been in a car accident or had cancer or suffered an anaphylactic reaction than to accept someone had deliberately taken his life. I’d heard the name before, as much as I tried to avoid the news, I sometimes came across it accidentally. But whenever that happened, I quickly pushed it away, rejected it in whole, lest it crawl into my brain and burrow into a spot where it would hang tight and never let go.
Shaking my head at Morris, I typed again. As I did so, Detective Fish announced that he had to make a quick call and exited the room. I understood. Friends with Dill. A breadcrumb had been tossed, and he wanted to follow up on it.
Oh? Do you know him well?
Just a little. I didn’t know he would do that. But he was nice 2 me and not many kids are.
Do they bully you?
Maybe sometimes but mostly ignore. Dill would sometimes talk 2 me. They didn’t just ignore him u know, they called him names all the time.
Thy used to call him pickle cuz of his name but this year they were mostly calling him loser and fag.
But he was nice to you?
Yeah. He said hi sometimes and once he gave me half his sandwich. I don’t always have lunch and he felt sorry for me I think.
Charlie… was he ever nice to you?
…
Does that mean no?
I mean he was ok. He smiled at me a few times but he didnt really talk to me tbh. He wasn’t mean to Dill either, I dont think.
The really mean boys wasn’t even in that class cuz I know what science class they were in.
Why do you think he did it in there then?
I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t mean to but he just broke b4 the bell rang. People can only take so much b4 they break.
Were you scared?
Yeah. Everyone in school was.
Now I think it was stupid to be afraid. If I died the angels would take me to heaven, and no one would ever hurt me again.
What about your dad? You seem afraid of him.
Have 2 go.
No wait, C you said you had a gun?
C?
I looked up at Morris and he nodded. “That’s okay, you did great. We’re going to be working with your provider to trace this if possible, and we’re contacting the school to get more information on the students who were present that day. This’ll be resolved soon. I’m sure.”
“All right, so I guess I’ll just wait for you to call and if he sends any more texts, I’ll get in touch sooner,” I said.
“Yep, and Ms. Sanger, thank you for coming to us. I know this has to be very difficult for you.”
Difficult. It was such a sanitized, proper word for what I was feeling. Calmly discussing Dill Hobert, the boy who had taken my son’s life, was like pinching the flame of a candle and refusing to flinch in public. I’d had entirely enough of other people observing me, worrying about me, making assumptions about me, though, so the facade of calm would remain firmly in place.
“Thanks, I’m fine. I’ll be in touch,” I said, perhaps a little too curtly, before I saw myself out of the building.
22
Sanitized, cleaned, my house was a mausoleum and the ghost it housed was me. Outside was real life; open the door and enter the place of memories. This was the place I’d turned to as a refuge when life stopped on April 12th, 2019. I’d spent that first month so heavily medicated, or if I wanted to be honest with myself, drugged, this home had felt like the entire world. The only surroundings I’d even known during that time had been in the cave of masochism that was once Charlie’s room. Now, with the opioid haze lifted, I viewed it all through more realistic eyes. For as long as I remained under this roof, I would never be able to truly move forward.
I made my way to Charlie’s room and gave it a frank visual inventory. It was messier now than it had been when he lived in it. My dirty clothes on the floor, glasses and various bits of trash cluttering the nightstands and desk. What was striking was how empty it felt despite that clutter. Whatever life force that was left of Charlie, and surely it existed somewhere, it wasn’t in this room.
My quiet moment was interrupted by the chime of my phone. Unthinkingly, I removed it from my pocket and answered.
“Hi, is this Nell Sanger?” a woman cautiously asked.
Shit. I knew better than to just answer the phone, I’d let my current mission distract me. Assuming this was a telemarketer, or worse, a reporter, I replied “Yes” in a tone that made it clear I wasn’t buying or selling.
“Hello, this is Ronda Jenkins,” she replied. There w
as a pause, and I realized she must have assumed I knew who she was. She had to be a reporter.
“Okay, and?” I said as coldly as possible.
“My son is DeShaun Jenkins,” she said simply, and then it clicked. Number Three. I cursed silently for having answered the call. I still wasn’t ready for this.
“I’m sorry, yes, of course. I got your voicemails… I just haven’t had a chance to respond.”
“I understand,” she said, in a tone that sounded suspiciously like she really didn’t. “As I mentioned before, I’ve been working with Calvin and Sherry Framingham as well as the parents of the injured children. We’ve already met with our district and state representatives, but we feel like our voices would be more powerful if you and Charlie’s father joined us. We’re still trying to reach the Carters as well. It’s a lot to explain, it would be easier if we could meet in person.”
“I.... I’m not sure,” I confessed. The thought of uniting in grief with a bunch of strangers sounded horrible. I preferred to handle things privately, although I had to admit that hadn’t worked out so well for me. The other issue was the fact I had no idea exactly what kind of reforms they were pushing. I had followed none of their efforts in the news, and while on an intellectual level, I could appreciate the value of directing anger toward a cause, my overwhelming emotion wasn’t anger. I was sad. The whole gun issue was a quagmire I tended not to think too much about even before this happened. Of course, we needed fewer guns on the streets, but realistically it was too late. Too many of the “bad guys” already had guns, so wasn’t it only logical that the “good guys” would want them too?
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