Murdered Child

I remember watching as the cops stormed my school, detectives fanning out to search out the teachers and speak to them about why they were raiding this high school. A student, apparently, had been found murdered, a positive pregnancy test lying by her outstretched hand, which was a little known fact about this case. This girl, only sixteen years of age, too young to care for a child on her own, was my age, and I knew her as she was my friend. I was reluctant to speak up, knowing that I would be considered as a suspect. Throughout my entire day, I watched as the detectives searched every locker in the school, asked questions to every boy and girl who had contact with the poor soul who was now dead.

"What do we have?" Detective Mac Taylor, a man who I learned was once a marine and who had lost his wife in the world trade center attack, asked his team.

"People know something, Mac, but they won't talk. It's like they're scared of something," a woman with curly hair answered her boss. Stella Bonasera, if my memory served me right, which it often did.

I wanted so desperately to open my mouth and speak to them, to tell them the truth, but I couldn't take the risk. It was a well known fact that the one who was really responsible was a young man with a father in the mayor's office, a vice mayor, or something just as important. He had slept with many of the school's cheerleaders, paying for abortions when his current partner found out that they were pregnant, and abusing them instead of going out. What kind of coward was he to hide behind his fists? Was he too scared to be a man, but not scared to be a bully? I had experience his fists once, but that was the last time, and when I showed him that I wouldn't bend down to his abusive ways, he left me alone, knowing that I would run to the police if I needed to.

"I think that maybe we need to run a background check on everyone in this school, and I mean everyone, from every single freshman to the school janitor," a detective with black hair and blue eyes said, pulling out his cell phone from his pocket and dialling a number from memory.

If only that would help you find the killer. But it was useless to try to tell them anything, so I turned and left, heading to my final class for the day. One hour later, I exited with a stream of students who were happy to be out of class for the day. Books clutched in my arms, I watched in grim satisfaction as the detective with black hair and blue eyes, handed a folded piece of paper to the principal. "Detective Flack... this is unethical. None of my students would have committed such an act!" I heard her say as I approached.

"We have reason to believe that someone in this school did kill our victim, and we are going to look for them," Flack's buddy replied, his voice spoken with a strong, down home New York accent. He looked a little geek-ish with his blue eyes hidden by a pair of glasses, but he was another crime scene investigator, another to help solve the crime.

They confiscated numerous things from the students who they had gathered in the gym. Caught unawares, students had dope in their hands, or were found in the middle of having sex with a school faculty member. Now that was fun to watch as Coach Robinson was yelled at by the principal for making sexual advances on a minor, and he was arrested right there in front of everybody. By the time that everybody was searched, it was after supper, and the detectives had quite the collection of drugs and weapons. When they came upon Mark Fielding, they found a gun, a switchblade and a picture of the murdered girl on him, not to mention, the entire thing on his cell phone. Mark cursed the detectives, trying to say that he was framed by someone else.

"I never touched the pregnant bitch!" he shouted.

"Now, we know you did it, since no one was told that she was pregnant," Detective Taylor said, snapping the cuffs on Marc's skinny white arms that killed my baby and I with his switchblade.

I was killed because I didn't want to kill my baby, because Marc was scared that he would have to be a father instead of a play boy. I had been showing him the truth when he had placed his arm around my neck, blade in hand, and slashed my throat with one strike. Smiling, I watched as Mark stared at me, eyes wide and afraid. I knew that he could see me, bloodied figure and all, and that of my baby, the babe staring at the other half of her genetics with accusing eyes.

"She's not dead! Can't you see her?" he yelled, struggling to get away from the officers that held him.

Still smiling, I walked forwarded, glided actually, and placed a ghostly hand on Marc's arm. "A coward can never be a man, Marc. Remember that," I told him, ghosting through him as if he didn't exist, leaving him shivering in my wake.

I turned at the gym doors, watching the team who had solved my murder in so few hours. I smiled brilliantly at them, the blood vanishing from me and leaving me whole, dressed in a pair of jeans and a lime green blouse with a frill running down the side. Their names came to me, unbidden, and I spoke them as they came. "Mac Taylor, Stella Bonasera, Danny Messer, Lindsay Messer, Don Flack... thank you," I said, heading to the light that awaited me and my child on the other side of the gym doors, ignoring the looks sent through me as I opened the door and left.

"Did you see that?" Danny asked, his eyes still on the swinging gym door. He had the vague impression that he had seen their victim leave through those very doors, a smile on her face.
"Dann-o, I think that our vic is dancing in Heaven right now for catching the sadistic bastard...hey what's this?" Flack was distracted by something on Marc's arm. A closer look revealed that two names were on my killer's arm, and however faint they were, everyone would know that they were there, telling the truth.

For on his arm, I had left my name and my child's, or what I would have named her had we lived.

Kim Lacey and Maria Hope Lacey.

Hey people. I decided to get this off of my chest for your pleasure. I had this idea rattling around in my head for an hour, of all things, and decided that you needed something else to read and review, if you want.

I based this story on real life, kind of. My sister was dumped by a coward of a man who took everything, including all of her money and her dog (thankfully, he returned her dog), but it got me thinking about how there are cowards out there, and I needed to incorporate that into a story, and this is what I got. If you know someone who is being abused, get them out of that relationship, and fast! If they're being stalked and harassed, call the police and stick up for that person, since no one like to be in such a situation. I don't care if you hate that person, but no one deserved to be treated like shit.