“Ms. Kordel, Ms. Smelter, thank you for coming in today,” said Roberts.
The two of them were sitting rigid and upright on the edge of the couch. They had not yet made themselves comfortable.
“I’m Captain John Roberts, as you might know. This is my colleague, Detective Gregory Beeves, and behind us is Anthony Carrick, a private consultant helping us on this case.”
Smelter and Kordel smiled nervously.
“Now usually, we don’t interview witnesses together, but we have no reason to believe you’re involved and because this is informal I felt it might help to make you feel more comfortable. I’d like to start with you, Ms. Kordel. Can you tell me what happened yesterday, the morning of Saturday the eighteenth of June.”
Kordel bit her lip which was smeared with a red lipstick.
“I woke up around eight in the morning, not feeling very good,” she said, giggling, “because I had a horrible headache. I went into the kitchen to get some coffee. Nobody else was up. Actually, nobody else was around. It was only me and Miki who stayed over. The place was a mess and I couldn’t understand why because before she’d left, Gina had started to clean it up a bit.”
Roberts nodded as Beeves took notes.
“What time did Gina leave?”
“I think it was a little before I crashed. I went to bed at around two. Kyle walked her out that’s about all I remember.”
“Do you remember the place having been cleaned up?”
“Not specifically, but I remember when Billy and Mary left at around one that Gina said she was going to stay behind to help clean up a bit.”
“Okay,” said Roberts, “tell me what happened after you got coffee yesterday morning.”
“Well, I went to start cleaning up, but I wasn’t in the mood. I had a horrible hangover, so I decided to go out into the backyard to get some fresh air. That’s when I saw her in the pool. Floating on her stomach.”
Kordel started to cry. A genuine cry. We all gave her a moment. There was a box of tissues on the table, as there always was in rooms like this. Roberts pushed it towards her.
“Here you go,” he said. “Take your time.”
She grabbed a couple of the tissues from the box as Smelter patted her on the back.
“Thank you,” she said, as she patted her eyes.
“You two were close?” asked Roberts.
Kordel nodded and looked up at him through red rimmed eyes.
“We all were. We all graduated from Millstone in two thousand,” she said. “We called ourselves the Y2K gang.” She smiled feebly at that.
“What happened after you found her?” asked Roberts.
“I was so upset that I went back inside and grabbed my phone and called 911.”
“Did you touch anything after that?”
Kordel shook her head.
“No, I went and woke up Miki and then we went outside to wait for you guys.”
Smelter looked at Roberts.
“Well, I actually couldn’t believe it. I thought she was playing tricks on me. Sometimes we’ve played tricks on each other. Those of us in the Y2K gang,” said Smelter. “So I had to see for myself. And I’m sorry I did.”
Her eyes welled up and she grabbed a tissue and dabbed at them before anything could happen.
“Then we went outside and waited.”
Kordel nodded her head.
“And you’re certain you didn’t touch anything once you saw your friend in the pool?”
They both shook their heads.
“What about when you got up? Try and retrace your steps from when you got up to when you saw your friend in the pool. Did you touch or move anything?”
Roberts was looking at Kordel. She bit her lower lip again and looked off towards me. But she wasn’t looking at me.
“Um, I got up and went to the toilet and brushed my teeth. Then I went into the kitchen and made myself a coffee. She has one of those coffee pod makers. I must’ve opened a cupboard to get a mug. The coffee pods are in a tray under the coffee maker and I put it in. I took cream out of the fridge but I didn’t put it back.”
She paused to think some more.
“I used a spoon to stir my coffee and cream and I left that on the counter. Then I went into the living room where all sorts of mess was on the table and everywhere. Cigarette ash. That’s when I thought to clean it up a bit. I went to put my coffee cup down on the table and as I did, my headache started to throb worse. So I decided I’d help clean up later.”
“Did you actually put your coffee cup down?”
Kordel thought for a moment and then shook her head.
“No, I was about to like I said, but I didn’t even manage that. That’s when I decided to go outside for some fresh air. The sliding door was still open so I didn’t touch that. As I stepped outside I saw Anna… I couldn’t believe it for a moment. I didn’t think it was real. But then it was, and I screamed and I came running back inside.”
Roberts nodded. I sipped my water. Kordel and Smelter hadn’t been offered anything from what I could tell. Maybe the front desk cop had offered them something. Regardless, they didn’t have anything to sip on.
“Carry on,” he encouraged.
“Well, I went straight into Miki’s room and woke her…”
“What did you do with the coffee mug?” asked Roberts.
“I think I had dropped it on ground outside when I saw Anna,” she said. She nodded. “Yes, I remember getting warm coffee on the bottom of my legs, around the ankles.”
“Thank you, Ms. Kordel,” said Roberts. He looked at Smelter. “Can you carry on from where Ms. Kordel left off?”
Smelter nodded.
“I wasn’t feeling too good either,” she said, giggling at her friend. “At first I tried to go back to sleep, but you kept shaking me.” Smelter was looking at Kordel. “So I got up and she was saying something about Anna being dead.”
Kordel nodded.
“When I figured out what she was saying I got dressed and went straight out onto the patio. I almost cut myself on the broken mug…”
“Sorry,” said Kordel.
“And there was poor Anna, face down in the pool. I could hear Patty on the phone behind me. She was talking to you guys. I went back into the house and used the washroom and brushed my teeth. When I came back out, Patty was off the phone.”
Kordel nodded.
“The 911 operator told me not to touch anything,” said Kordel, “so Miki and I decided it was a good idea to wait outside for you guys.”
Smelter nodded.
“I didn’t touch anything I don’t think. I just grabbed my shoes and we went out front and waited by the driveway.”
Kordel nodded.
“Now, we’re going to read a list of names of the people who were there and I want you to tell me if all of them were friends of yours from high school, and it’s especially important if you can tell me if any of these people might have had it in for Anna. Okay?”
Smelter and Kordel nodded. Roberts looked at Beeves.
“Now, just let Detective Beeves finish the names before you say anything.”
Beeves flipped back some pages in his notebook. Then he started to read.
“Rip Peso, Mary Beale, William Orpen, Anna Ancher, Patricia Kordel, Miki Smelter, Kyle Labecki, Gary Verukin, Ashlee Toseland, Marissa Jonak, Gina Penman, Clifton Gudaitis, Valarie Merwitz.”
“First of all,” said Roberts, “was anyone else there that we’ve forgotten?”
Smelter looked at Kordel and Kordel looked at Smelter. Then they both looked at us.
“No, I think that’s it, right?” said Smelter, looking at Kordel.
“Yeah, that’s everyone,” said Kordel.
“I can tell you,” said Smelter, “that Rip, Kyle, Gary, Ashlee, and Marissa were not part of the Y2K gang. They didn’t go to school with us.”
Kordel nodded.
“Rip used to date Anna and he’s like five years older than us or something…”
&nb
sp; “And how old are the two of you?” asked Roberts.
“We’re thirty-three,” said Smelter. “Anna and Billy and Clif, Val and Gina and Mary are all thirty-four.”
She looked over at Kordel. Kordel thought for a moment.
“Actually,” said Kordel, “I think Gina might be our age.”
Smelter nodded and shrugged.
“We weren’t that close to Gina. And Kyle and Gary are super old. Especially Kyle, I think he must have graduated in nineteen hundred.”
They both giggled, thinking it was funny.
“He’s probably younger than your fathers,” I said, “and the two of you don’t look like spring chickens anymore what with your turkey necks.”
I was being an ass. I couldn’t help it. They just sounded like spoilt brats. Smelter instinctively put her hand to her throat and massaged her fingers down her neck. Roberts gave me a disapproving look.
“So, out of those who all graduated with the Y2K gang, who were the closest?” asked Roberts.
“All of us except for Val and Gina,” said Kordel.
“Why is that?”
Smelter looked at Kordel and it was a look that was asking something. Kordel picked up on it.
“No, it’s time to put it behind us,” she said to Smelter.
“What?” asked Roberts, trying to encourage Kordel.
“It was a long time ago,” she said, “and we were just kids.”
I knew the way this went. Setting the excuse ahead of time. Something nefarious had taken place.
Smelter glared at her friend. Roberts picked up on this.
“Ms. Smelter,” he said, “if you are unwilling to help us, we can interview you separately.”
Now he was giving her the steely eye. She shrank away from it like a rose in the desert sun.
“Listen, we have no reason to believe that either of you are complicit in either of these two murders, but if you cared for your friends, then you must help us. Even if it happened a long time ago. It might have relevance today. In fact, it might be crucial to solving these murders today.”
Smelter looked at her lap and fiddled with her fingers. Roberts looked back at Kordel.
“Please continue,” he said.
Kordel looked away guiltily.
“Well, we weren’t always that nice to Gina,” she said. “She wanted to be a part of our group desperately, but we always treated her poorly. I’m ashamed to say it now.”
“Why?”
“Well,” said Kordel, looking up at us guiltily, “we didn’t think she was really like the rest of us. You see, she was on a scholarship to Millstone. It’s an expensive school and her parents, who weren’t even her biological parents, couldn’t afford it. So we made fun of her for that, and we made life difficult as hell for her because of it. Now I know that it was wrong. I mean it wasn’t her fault. You see the rest of us all come from money. Gina didn’t.”
“You said she wasn’t living with her biological parents. Was she adopted?” asked Roberts.
Smelter nodded.
“Yes.”
“And who were her biological parents?”
“She never told us,” said Kordel. “I don’t think she knew.”
“What did her adopted parents do?”
“Her mother was a teacher and her father was an electrician I think, or plumber. Something like that.”
“So the two of you were mean to her?” said Roberts, “what about Val.”
“Val was different. She was more of a loner. She didn’t particularly care for us and we didn’t particularly care for her. If anything, she preferred Gina, I think, to any of us,” said Kordel.
“Why was that?”
“Because we weren’t very nice. At least not back then,” said Smelter.
“Can you give me an example?”
Kordel looked at Smelter. They didn’t say anything.
“I don’t think we can tell you without getting ourselves in trouble,” said Kordel.
“Why do you think you’d get into trouble?” asked Roberts.
“Because we knew a crime was committed back then and we didn’t do anything about it,” Kordel.
She started to sob. Now her conscience had found her.
“What sort of crime was it?” I asked. “Some have limitations.”
Kordel looked up at me, and then at Roberts.
“Is he right?”
“He is, but it depends on the crime. What were you witness to, Ms. Kordel?”
She sobbed a little more forcefully then. She grabbed a couple of new tissues and blew her nose. She dabbed at her eyes with clean tissues. Then she looked at Smelter and then at Roberts.
“I’m going to tell him. What we did was wrong and I don’t want to carry it anymore.”
Smelter didn’t say anything, she just looked away.
“Tell me,” said Roberts, leaning in and smiling at her like a good uncle. I finished the water in my bottle.
“Well, in grade eleven we were really mean to Gina. I guess we just all egged her on. We teased her about how much she liked Billy, because she did. Most of the girls in Millstone liked Billy. I guess we were the cool kids. And Gina wanted desperately to be with us. So we played mean tricks on her. We had her do stupid things in class like put dog shit on the teacher’s chair one time. She got into a lot of trouble with the principal. She was even excused from school for a week as punishment.”
Smelter rolled her eyes.
“She was such an idiot,” she said. “I don’t know why she even bothered. We weren’t as cool as she thought we were.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to explain high school relationships,” offered Roberts.
“We told her we’d meet her at a restaurant or shops and just never show up, or we’d show up and just ignore her and laugh at her. We did stupid stuff like that.”
“That’s all quite mean,” agreed Roberts, “but other than the dog shit which might’ve been a misdemeanor for defacing school property, there’s nothing here that you should be worried about.”
Kordel nodded her head and frowned.
“That was just us working up to it. At around that time, I guess, Billy had heard about Gene Simmons and so Billy wanted to start sleeping with as many women as he could.”
“Including you?” I asked.
Kordel flushed.
“Yes. I’m embarrassed to say. With Mary and Miki and Anna too.”
I could see Smelter glaring at her. It made me smile. She saw that and glared at me. That made me smile bigger. Then she looked away.
“Well, we were all at a party at Billy’s parent’s place one night and we got Gina drunk and then Billy raped her. I know it sounds horrible but we thought Gina wouldn’t mind…”
“Wouldn’t mind?” asked Roberts, incredulity strained in his voice.
“We were young and stupid and Gina really had a crush on Billy.”
“Young and stupid,” repeated Roberts angrily, losing control of himself.
“Yes,” said Kordel, loudly. She grabbed more tissues and dabbed at her watery eyes. I wondered if we’d get through this with any tissues left in the box. “I know how awful it sounds now, how awful it was,” she said sobbing. “But we were mean. I told you that. Shortly after it was all over, Gina left in a state, promising to kill us all.”
“Did she tell the police?” asked Roberts.
Kordel shook her head.
“Did she tell anyone?”
“I don’t know,” said Kordel. “We had very little to do with her after that.”
“Did she try to harm any of you after that?”
Kordel shook her head.
“So,” I said, seeing if I could understand this. “The Y2K gang ruins a young woman’s life and now you feel sorry about it.”
Kordel looked up at me briefly but didn’t say anything.
“Gina decides she’s had enough of you and you don’t really have anything to do with each other, but now you’re all best buds again. Explain that to me?”
“I can’t explain it,” said Kordel. “I hadn’t seen Gina since the last day of high school. But then she showed up at Mary’s after-party on the opening night of the play. I guess Mary felt badly about what we’d all done. Though to be honest, it was mostly Mary and Anna who got Gina drunk and encouraged her to go make out with Billy which is when she got raped.”
“And you two little angels were just innocent bystanders?” I asked.
“No,” said Kordel, “but we did say that maybe they shouldn’t encourage her to go and make out with Billy. But you’re right, it was a half-hearted effort and we didn’t do anything to stop it. Though I swear, we didn’t know she’d be raped by him.”
Roberts put his hand up to stop me from speaking further.
“So you hadn’t seen her since high school,” said Roberts. “Did Mary say anything to you about her being at the play’s opening night after-party?”
Kordel nodded.
“Mary said she’d met Gina a few weeks earlier I guess when they had started rehearsals for the play. She said that Gina had been very nice and Mary said she’d felt bad about what happened and thought it would be nice to invite her to the party. I mean, the Director was being invited, and her being the Director’s Assistant and all. But Mary was quite clear to all of us, Anna and Billy too, that we were to treat Gina like a friend now. We weren’t in high school anymore is what she said.”
“And that was that?” I asked.
“Well yes,” said Smelter, “we’ve seen her a couple of times since then. At the party at Mary’s place and then at Anna’s too.”
“And how did Gina seem?” asked Roberts.
“She seemed like her normal self. Shy and reserved like she’d always been,” said Kordel.
“And you got no sense of animosity from her?” asked Roberts.
Kordel shook her head.
“No. I guess she was trying to kill us with kindness.”
“Gina gave no reason for holding a grudge with any of you at either party?” asked Roberts.
Smelter giggled.
“Gina, good God no, she’s meek as a lamb. Always has been and just as Patty said, she was like that at both parties. In fact, she was more like the hired help, wasn’t she?” said Smelter, turning to look at her friend. “I mean she was practically serving everyone drinks at Anna’s, wasn’t she? Especially Anna.”
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