I do not own any of these characters except for Jacob, the Hardings and that is it. I'm so cool. No, I'm lying. This is my first story, so please rate and comment. I know, it's one crap of a story. But oh well.
"We got another dead girl," Nick garbled, dropping a large file onto Lilly's desk. Lilly looked up from one of the hundreds of papers on her desk to look at Nick.
She lifted her eyebrows, pleading him to continue. 'There has to be more to this case than just a dead girl', she hoping that this case was not another dead end typical case.
"Sixteen years old… That's all I got." Nick shrugged; it was obvious he had more 'important' things to do.
Lilly lifted the dusty lid of the file box, the box was nearly empty. Apparently this case meant very little to everyone. She delicately lifted the general file out of the box and scanned it with her eyes.
- Name: Julie Harding
- DOD: November 13, 2000
- COD: Blunt trauma to head
- Name: Unborn child
- DOD: November 13, 2000
- COD: Life support terminated by death
So there was more to this case than Nick had informed. Lilly picked through the rest of the file, useless information. It was obvious that people had just thrown this case aside, who cared about a teenager and her unborn child?
(At the Harding family residence)
"Please, have a seat," Mrs. Tiffany Harding told Lilly, welcoming Lilly into the Harding's home with shaking hands. "When we heard you were asking about Julie, we couldn't help but wonder… Is there more on her case? Did you find something?" Tiffany asked these questions with hope in her large green eyes. She pleaded for more information, more truth.
"We've begun looking into her case file more thoroughly and there were… some… holes in the previous work," Lilly spoke softly, trying not to give the family too much hope, she had very little optimism in this case herself. "When was the last time you saw your daughter?"
"Around dinner time on the thirteenth, she said she was going to the movies with Jacob." Ryan Harding chimed in, sounding sure of himself.
"Jacob?" Lilly questioned, not familiar with this person.
"One of her school friends…" Ryan assured Lilly.
"And do you know that Julie went to the movies or if she just told you that?"
"Julie never did anything wrong. She was a good girl. Not once she did lie to us," Tiffany nodded, christening Julie as a saint.
"And what about her unborn child?" Lilly questioned.
Both parents shook their heads quickly, "We don't speak about that. We want Julie to be remembered for what she did correctly, not for her mistakes." Tiffany spoke sternly, leaning into the conversation.
Lilly smiled politely and nodded, leaving the Harding family to themselves.
Scotty had been waiting in the car the entire time, sipping on his coffee in a poor attempt to keep himself awake. Lilly opened the door, slamming it shut, in order to wake him up. "What do you think of a family that ignores their daughter's pregnancy?"
"What about the father?" Scotty inquired, in a groggy tone.
"Seven years ago, they didn't think that was important enough to write down."
"To the filing room?" Scotty questioned as Lilly nodded.
The two had some luck in the filing room… "Look at this," Scotty announced, walking over to Lilly, "This says that the father of Julie's baby was her so-called friend, Jacob… Now why wasn't he ever announced as a suspect?" The duo raised their eyebrows.
(Dino's Mechanic Shop)
"Jacob Baker?" Lilly announced, pulling out her badge. "Mind if we ask you a few questions?"
A young, raven haired young man peeked up from hovering over a car's engine. He was an attractive young man with dark brown eyes that were occasionally covered with his dark hair. Jacob wiped off his grease covered hands on a nearby cloth. "Yeah?" He asked, his eyebrows raised.
"What do you know about Julie Harding?" Scotty asked, pulling out a picture of the young girl. She had amber hair and soft freckles with her mother's green eyes. She was genuinely attractive.
Jacob didn't even bother looking at the picture, "Yeah, what do you want to know?" He asked, in a slightly rude manner.
"Look, we can do this here, or in a little more serious setting. That's up to you."
"Let's go in the office," Jake said, pointing to a small room.
As the trio entered the office, Jake sat down quickly, a little shaky.
"Tell us what you know… We know that you were the father of her child, so don't give us some bull."
"Why don't you start at the beginning, we'll help you out," Lilly said, eyeing Scotty.
"Look, Julie and I dated for two years and made a mistake. That's just what happened. After she told me she was pregnant, I didn't see her again," Jake admitted, obviously bothered by this situation.
"That's not what the Harding's told us. They said you went out for a movie the night she was murdered."
"I swear, I didn't see her. I hadn't seen her for five months then."
(Back at the precinct)
"I just got the phone records from Julie's cell from November seventh to the night of her murder. That week she spent ten hours alone talking to this number," Scotty said, pointing out a phone number.
Lilly quickly entered the number into the computer, "What a surprise, Jacob L. Baker. Looks like Jacob was keeping some things from us…"
There were no other suspects. All arrows pointed to him. There could be no one else. The two decided it was time for Jacob to come in.
"You're unborn child was killed, do you know how that could have happened? The mother of your child was beaten until she was unconscious and then her skull was broken by a blunt object, we're thinking a rock." Scotty said, throwing pictures of the crime scene in front of Jacob.
Jacob's face lost all color as his dark brown eyes stared at the pictures, glazing over. He couldn't help but gag, the scene was horrendous. Puddles of blood surrounded Julie, her beautiful face was shattered and her body was mangled. Jacob couldn't help but turn away, tears welting up in his eyes.
"Can't look at your own crime?" Lilly pressed sternly. "And what about your child?" She asked, throwing the other pictures in front of him.
This time, Jacob couldn't take it, he had to run to the trash can. The scene was brutal. He returned to the table, shaking violently.
Out of pity, Lilly pulled the pictures back into the files.
"How can you say I did something like this?!!! To my own child?!!!!" Jake screamed, tears falling from his eyes. He struggled to control his tears and breath.
"You haven't provided us with an alibi, so what does it matter what you say? A jury will convict you in a heartbeat. So you better start telling us the truth. We know about the calls you made to Julie the week before she was murdered, I thought she stopped talking to you…"
"Look, she needed someone to talk to. I listened. That's it." Jake said, trying to calm himself down.
"Talk about what?"
"I was always her excuse to get out of her house, but since she stopped talking to me, her parents wouldn't leave her alone."
"What do you mean?" Scotty asked, pressing Jake to tell more.
"Her parents hated her for keeping our child. Almost as much as they hated me."
Both agents looked at Jacob, finally listening.
"A week after she told me and her parents that she was pregnant, he pushed her down the fucking stairs!"
Both agents' eyes widened.
"They wanted that baby dead, just so they could save face. You know, bad for the family name."
(Harding house, again)
The detectives arrive at the house with a search warrant, disturbing the Harding's and the pristine neighborhood.
They turned the house over and over, searching Julie's room as well as everywhere else. They found nothing. The house was spotless, all ropes lead back to Jacob, again.
"Why haven't you just convicted Jacob yet? We all know he did it. That screwed up kid knew that the baby wasn't his and he wanted to get rid of it." Ryan sneered.
The detectives looked at each other. "In the file it said that Jacob was the father…" Scotty spoke.
"That's what the file said. If they did a DNA test they would have found out otherwise."
Lilly and Scotty sat at their desks, mulling over the stacks of new files. Once a DNA test was performed on the small amount of DNA left of the unborn baby, the test confirmed that Jacob was not the father… but rather, his brother.
"So Jacob finds out that he's not the father, he flips. He goes crazy. Calls her up, begging her to take him back and then kills her. Is that what we're thinking?"
"It better be, we have a man locked up in the room right now and we only have one more hour left before he has to be released. But I'm really not seeing how this kid could harm her and the child. It really seems like he loved her and even the unborn child…"
The two entered the room to see a pale, shaky, emotionally drained Jacob sitting at the small table.
He looked up at the two, hoping that they convicted Ryan Harding of killing her and the baby. But they both frowned at Jake, shaking their heads. "What? What does that mean?"
"We didn't find anything to even help us with Ryan. They really want to get someone for this, Jacob. The Hardings are going to take you to court. They will try to convict you…"
(Two months later)
"How do you plead?" A judge asked Jacob.
"Not guilty…"
Jacob could not stand to look at anyone or anything but the ground and he kept his eyes focused no the ground until the end of the trial. He not even care what any of the witnesses said… They were all against him anyway.
------------------
"And how do you find the defendant?"
"…. GUILTY."
"And what is your proposed sentence?"
"……….. LIFE."