Girl Found: A Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery

by Kate Gable

  It's not that you always feel like it's your fault, it's more like you just don't want to think about it. You just want to dissociate from the body that belonged to that man.

  In this case, he didn’t hurt me sexually, but the physical attack made me feel so shitty and so bad about myself. It made me feel like I'm not good enough, but the truth is that I’m too good for him.

  I don't want to hold it back anymore. Since Katherine told me her truth, I figure I might as well tell her my secret.

  "He punched me in my stomach on one occasion. He slammed my head in the wall on another,” I say. “It was always during an argument. I can’t remember about what now. I do remember his grip on my neck. I remember how much it hurt when my head collided with the wall. I remember the rage. The cold, dark rage in his eyes and how he could easily have kept his hand there a minute longer and took my life. He liked knowing that, too. When he let go, I could tell that he did it because he wanted to show me that he could kill me."

  "God, that's messed up," Katherine says.

  “Yeah, it is. No one knew we were dating when it happened. We never filled out that paperwork with HR. You never know when is a good time to do that. You want to make sure that you're serious because you don't want to go back and fill out more paperwork about your personal life, so we kind of kept it a secret at first. Then that happened and we broke up."

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  "I found out that he got a court reporter pregnant. He was seeing her for a while. Then we had the argument and he punched me, strangled me, hit my head against the wall, and it was over, but...”

  "You didn't tell anyone?"

  I shake my head and admit, "No."

  I want to cry but no tears come to the surface and I just feel this general sense of malaise wash over me.

  "Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you make a report?"

  "Why didn't you?" I snap back.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. It wasn't an accusation. I was genuinely interested."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry, too," I say immediately, regretting the fact that I was rude.

  It's a natural question and in the way she asked it, it wasn't an accusation at all.

  "I don't know. I mean, I do know. That's a lie."

  I bring my hand up to my forehead and rub it, then I rub my temples. A headache, quiet but steady at first, settles somewhere in the back before making its way to the front.

  "He's a colleague. No one knew we were dating. He has a lot more friends than I do. I didn't want to be that girl. This is the whole problem with not enough women in the force," I say. "It's a boys' club. You know that they still go to the strip clubs, play golf, and do all of these men-only activities to form closer bonds. Who are they going to believe? Him, their buddy, their friend, or his crazy ex-girlfriend?"

  “So-called crazy. Kind of reminds me of a quote by Margaret Atwood,” Katherine says. “‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.’”

  Silence fills the room. We listen to it together and apart, sharing our sadness and commiserating with one another.

  "What now?" I ask.

  "I think we have to play it by ear. I have a feeling that he's going to dig his own grave."

  "Not quickly enough," I say.

  “Totally, but with the way he got mad at Danny, hopefully Danny has enough sense to get himself an attorney to press charges against the department."

  "That's not a really cool thing to say.” I smile mischievously out of the corner of my lips. "I'm not sure what Captain Medvil will have to say about that."

  "Actually, Captain Medvil would agree with us if he knew what Thomas Abrams did. The problem is that he doesn't know the truth and we're at fault for that as much as anyone else."

  "You think we made the wrong decisions? You think we should have said something?"

  "If I did, then I wouldn't be talking to you now," she tells me.

  I walk out of her office knowing that I made a mistake not making a report against him before. My career would probably be over but at least there would be a paper trail of complaints.

  I appreciate her coming to me.

  I appreciate her telling me the truth about what happened because without her taking that chance, I wouldn't know the other part of who Thomas is and what he’s capable of.

  The thing is that people like this, they don't just do one thing and forget about it. It doesn't work like that. It's an escalation.

  Somebody didn't stop him from groping her and didn't call attention to it in high school, so in college he slipped another girl a roofie and took advantage of her.

  Maybe by the time he was a senior, he full on held her down and had his way.

  I don't know the extent of his sexual history or what exactly he did or didn't do and the truth is that neither does Katherine.

  Maybe he was there and watched, maybe he participated, but is it really so much worse to watch and not participate?

  To stand there as a helpless girl gets raped by your friends?

  Is that really okay?

  There's a law on the books for which many young men are serving a lot of hard years in prison that says that it’s not. If you're in the car while a robbery takes place, it doesn't even matter if you're the getaway driver or not.

  It doesn't matter if your friends told you that they were going to be hitting up a liquor store or maybe did it just in the spur of the moment for fun.

  The only thing that matters is that, if somebody gets killed in the commission of that crime, you're as much at fault for what they did as they are.

  If it applies to stealing money from a convenience store, shouldn’t the same apply to sexual assault?

  I don't make it far down the hallway when I hear footsteps behind me.

  "Hey. Hey, Kaitlyn. Wait up." Katherine catches up to me and hands me my phone. "You forgot this."

  "Oh, thanks. Sorry."

  "Listen, I just want to let you know that I heard about your sister."

  I shake my head, uncertain as to what to say.

  "I'm really sorry. I'm going to look into it. I don't know what I can do, but I can make some calls if you want."

  I shrug and sadly admit, "Right now it's all about canvassing the neighborhood. The deputies up there have already done it, but they haven't found out much so I'm just going to head back and ask more questions."

  “Sounds like a good plan.” She shifts her weight from one foot to another.

  "Listen, I really appreciate you saying that,” I say. “I'll definitely take you up on it in the future. God knows I'll probably need your help."

  "Of course. How long has it been?"

  I bite my lip. I don't want to say the exact number of days even though the number's ingrained in my mind.

  "Too long."

  "I'm really sorry.”

  “Her friend just went missing under similar circumstance. The FBI is working on it now.”

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, but there's no evidence. They did found their clothes packed into these bags all folded up and nice but nothing came back from CSI yet so I have no idea."

  I lean closer to her.

  I don't want to say this part too loudly.

  It's almost as if the words are too scary to utter at full volume. "I think the case has gone cold."

  "Don't say that,” Katherine whispers.

  "I don't want to but that's just what it feels like. There are not any leads. It's like they both vanished into thin air. I had some hope when Natalie went missing. Maybe if they were looking for two girls instead of one there'd be more of a chance to find them, but no, doesn't seem like that."

  "Someone has to know something. Don't get down, stay proactive."

  I nod. I appreciate her urgency and confidence.

  "Just keep asking questions. Her friends. Their parents. Any random comments and statements. Out loud or on social media. Kids, they post everything."

  "Yea
h, I know." I nod.

  "You're going to find her… alive,” Katherine promises me.

  She takes my hand in hers, pulls me close, and gives me a warm hug.

  A tear runs down my cheek. I let myself sob like I haven't in a while. She wraps her arm around my shoulder and makes me feel like I'm not alone.

  32

  When it begins to rain, I decide to drive back home. I throw a few things into a bag, make sure that I have all my electronics and plugs, and I drive through the sad LA drizzle.

  Los Angeles is beautiful when it's sunny and bright. Then the sky doesn't have a single cloud and beams with turquoise.

  On overcast days, especially when you're driving on a freeway through the eastern parts, everything is gray, dark, and concrete.

  I get tired of music and instead put on an audio book, while I wait in traffic of cars stacked like matchboxes. The narrator's voice drones on and somehow matches up with the sound of the rain hitting the windshield.

  A tragedy unfolds in the story, horrific, but not scary. It's a thriller, a mystery, and unknown. I usually stay away from books like this because I have enough of that in my real life, but I liked the way she sounded in the sample.

  I liked the whole anti-social aspect to it. Sometimes I'm attracted to books like Gone Girl, where you have an anti-hero telling the story. If I let myself think too much and I let myself go too much into my own mind, that's what happens to me. My thoughts can be quite dark and macabre.

  I can blame it on my job and all the ugliness that I see in the world, but the truth is that it's something else. I've always felt this way, particularly on those dark dreary days.

  It's hard to get out of bed.

  It's hard to do anything productive.

  It's hard to even care.

  Driving a car, however, is not particularly hard. It's all become automatic now. I let myself drift off and space out. I lose myself in my thoughts and my body keeps taking me further and further away from my apartment and closer to a place I used to call home.

  I have a few days here.

  I'm not sure how many exactly, but Captain Medvil wants Danny to have some days to cool off. He wants him to think about everything that had happened in the interrogation and all the lies that he told.

  He wants him to talk to his fiancée, Eve, and try to think of a story. This is a common tactic. We want Danny to get nervous, to worry about what he may or may not have told us.

  The thing is that we don't have any evidence to arrest him. So, unless he comes forward and tells us exactly where Nick is, we don't have much of a case.

  I have some suspicions, but not anything that will lead to the courtroom.

  When I get to Big Bear, snow begins to fall. Small little flurries start to circle and the temperature begins to drop.

  Instead of heading straight home, I stop by to talk to Lynn Wrasel, a student in Violet's art class. She's one of the many girls on my list that I want to speak with.

  I saw Violet in a picture on her Instagram page. The caption on it talked about how much they loved art together and how much Lynn misses her friend.

  I've never heard Violet mention her name before.

  It doesn't mean much, but because I don't know every one of her friends and everyone that she had spoken to, I wish that we were closer as sisters.

  I wish that I was someone that she could confide in, but I'm eighteen years older. She knows me more as an adult than a friend, but I was also someone who was too busy with my own personal life, career, and drama to pay as much attention to her.

  Lynn Wrasel lives in one of the apartments by a waterfront in Big Bear Lake. There aren't many apartment buildings in this area, but these are one of the newer structures.

  Most are condos rented out by rich Los Angelenos on short-term rental sites. I find out that her mom doesn't own this place because when I looked up the property records, somebody else is listed on the deed.

  When I called earlier, Mrs. Wrasel had agreed to the interview, but said that she wants to be present. I'm hoping that once Lynn becomes a little bit more comfortable with me, we can talk in private.

  Mrs. Wrasel, or Mindy, as she asks me to call her, has big kind eyes and a short layered haircut. She's wearing scrubs because she's a nursing assistant at the local hospital.

  Her neck is draped in jewelry and a little rose tattoo is peeking out from underneath the sleeve of her left arm. From the looks of it, it appears to be quite intricate and well done. The rose is wrapped around a dagger puncturing something.

  I'm about to say something about it, but Mindy pulls down her sleeve, clearly not interested in discussing it. Lynn comes out of her room and waves hello.

  I take a brief look at the second floor condominium. There's only one source of light coming from the big window all the way across the living room, but it's also partially blocked by a patio.

  Mindy waves me over to sit down on the futon masquerading as a couch in the living room and asks me how they can help me.

  "You have such a nice view," I say, looking out onto the lake.

  The flurries have morphed into more substantial snowflakes, heavy and wet.

  They swirl around and land on the railing. It's already dark outside, but I'm familiar with the style of apartments and they are usually dim even on the brightest days due to the stacking of the patios one on top of the other.

  "I'm really sorry about your sister," Lynn says, cracking her knuckles.

  She's slim and tall. The strands of hair bordering her face are dyed fuchsia pink. It's actually a nice look. They frame her face in a way and bring out the paleness of her skin.

  Her nails are painted a dark maroon color and peeling off in parts. That nails are short and I doubt that they're acrylic. The manicure itself looks rather homemade.

  I ask Lynn about Violet and how she knew her. I mention that I saw her post on Instagram.

  "We weren't like super close, but we had art together."

  "Do you like it?" I ask.

  "Yes, very much. We worked on a papier-mâché project together. Her favorite was doing these black and white sketches. I actually took pictures of some."

  She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her camera roll. She shows me the skull, dagger, and two roses framing the picture in both ends.

  "Violet did this?" I ask.

  She nods.

  "I've never seen her draw anything like this."

  "Yeah. I don't know," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "She's been really getting into these kinds of images. Did you see her other Instagram page?"

  "Her other one?" I ask.

  "Yeah, the one that's devoted to her art."

  I shake my head and admit, "No. I never even knew she had another account."

  She pulls it up and I see the name at the top: Violet Paige Art. Paige is her middle name.

  I swallow hard. The page is populated with artwork resembling death, suffering, and darkness. There are ravens, skulls, cemetery scenes, and even zombies eating brains.

  The dominant colors in all the pictures seem to be black, red, and gray with accents of yellow.

  "Okay, I know this looks really dark," Lynn says, "but let me explain."

  I nod.

  "She was really into reading about horror. You know that, right?"

  I nod, even though I don't know anything about that.

  "Like Stephen King and Christopher Pike."

  I nod. Christopher Pike was one of my favorites when I was growing up.

  "So, it's not like she’s disturbed, even though her artwork sort of looks like it."

  I nod, trying to believe her.

  "You're convinced?” Lynn says, pulling on her spaghetti strap after it drops down off her shoulder.

  She's dressed in black jeans, a tight belly button showing black tank top with spaghetti straps and a flannel t-shirt. I swear that I'm back in the nineties.

  "She didn't want your mom to know this," she says, leaning over to me.

  Mindy sits
at the dining room table with a laptop in front of her pretending to be busy, but by the way that her head moves, I can tell that she's actively listening.

  "Here, come to my room," Lynn says, catching her mom spying on us.

  "Sorry!” Mindy yells a half-hearted apology.

  "Does it matter,” Lynn says, waving her hand.

  Her mom’s room is right across the way and it looks like a page out of an IKEA catalog while Lynn's is the kind of bedroom you'd expect a teenager in a movie to have.

  The walls are painted black and one side is covered entirely in pictures cut out from magazines. It looks like at one point it was a collage and then it became something else entirely: just faces, a crowd of people looking at you.

  A string of lights hangs above her bed and instead of a nightstand, she has a small white desk, which is cluttered with papers, art projects, binders, and a laptop.

  Lynn opens the bottom drawer of her desk and pulls out a folder.

  “She made these recently,” she says and hands them to me.

  I look through the drawings and the paintings inside. More skulls, more daggers, and more cemetery scenes, but the style is evolving. The details are becoming brighter. Some of them are from the pictures posted on the Instagram page.

  "Why do you have these?" I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  "Why do you have these?" I ask again.

  She looks down at the floor while whispering, "She told me to hold onto them. She didn't want your mom to find them."

  "Why?"

  "She was really not supportive of her art. She didn’t want her to go to that art school in LA. Please don't tell her about the Instagram page. If ... when Violet comes back," Lynn says, correcting herself, "I don't want her to know that I was the one that exposed her secret.”

  Violet’s art school dream is familiar to me. She told me all about it the one week she stayed in my apartment, trying to get some space from Mom after a particularly bad fight.

  "So, she was just drawing this dark art? I don't know why Mom would have a problem with that."