Love Me Not…
"We found a little girl, Chief, covered in some of the debris from the fire. The paramedics are now trying their best to revive her. They say it looks like she's been unconscious for hours. Over." Charley Watkins radioed the latest update to Chief Crispin, who was standing outside the house supervising the other fire fighters put out the last staggering flames with retardant.
The Chief paused a moment before answering, "Her parents, Jonathan and Renee, have their bodies been recovered yet?" His voice quavered a bit, as if dreading the answer, and he clenched the two way transmitter as if wanting to crush it.
"Negative Chief, but we will keep you posted. They're taking the girl out on the stretcher now," and here the radio crackled and popped with intermitting static, but Chief Crispin knew what he had to do.
"Clear the way to the ambulance men!" he shouted, lowering the radio. "Make way for the paramedics!"
The sooty and tired fire fighters stumbled back to the street with their commander, and a hush fell over them as they watched two men in dark blue suits walk out the charred entryway of the house, which used to be the front door, carrying a small white stretcher.
Chief Crispin made his way forward and opened the doors of the ambulance for the paramedics. As they proceeded to roll the stretcher in, he got a glance of the small helpless body, and gasped.
"Renee's hair," he whispered, and reached out to touch a long lock of black hair that had escaped the stretcher and was hanging over the side. The child looked to be about two, but with the body of a small baby. She was so pale, white as death, and her eyelashes were twice as long as the tiny fingers that clutched the metal bar of the stretcher she was confined to.
"Did you know this girl, Chief?" One of the paramedics asked inquisitively, who had watched the whole silent conference with officious curiosity.
The Chief thought a few seconds before answering, "No, but her parents…they…"
"Ah, you were good friends then?" The smug paramedic answered knowingly, but with sincere pity in his expression.
The Chief nodded and the latter chose wisely to not pry any further. Once he had gotten the girl settled into the ambulance, he rapped on the little window that separated the driver's seat from the spacious area behind it. The driver turned around and gave a curt nod, then started the engine and turned on the siren and lights.
The Chief looked one more time at the little angel hooked up to all those tubes, then slowly shut the doors. Sliding the bar into place on the back door, he went to the side and waved off the driver.
Speeding away, spewing gravel and dirt over the already-grimy fire fighters, the wailing ambulance sped away.
Then it happened.
"Come in Chief, this is Head of Unit GB3, come in commander." the radio sputtered out.
Crispin jumped at the abrupt intervention of the yellow transmitter, and instinctively reached down and pressed the TALK button located on the side.
"Any updates on her parents GB3?" The Chief asked shakily.
"We have located them in the upstairs hallway closet. They have been confirmed dead. Alert the second ambulance at once, over." The voice now sounded strained, as if he should be saying more but decided to keep to the facts.
"Roger that GB3…is there anything wrong?"
"Well the bodies seem a little, a little abnormal. The expressions that are on their faces, it's almost like…"and the radio fell silent.
"What? What about their expressions? What seems abnormal?" The Chief demanded, his heart sinking into his stomach.
"Well you will see for yourself sir when the paramedics come for the bodies. You will see…"
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"And by what means did you come to know the Riddle family Mr. Crispin?" The detective turned around and placed his large hands on the table, staring down the already-uncomfortable fire fighter.
The Chief placed his hands together and leaned forward. "I already explained it thoroughly in my testimony, officer, how I came to know the Riddles," he replied in a testy voice.
"Now don't get smart with me Chief, you are already one of our top suspects on this case, and you don't want to dig your grave any deeper by being impertinent. Now, I will ask you one more time and if you don't come out with it I will personally destroy your original testimony and have you appear in court with nothing to back your word up…HOW DID YOU COME TO KNOW THE RIDDLE FAMILY?"
Crispin squirmed uncomfortably, then sighed, "Jonathan and I go back a long way. We used to be best friends in high school. The day we received our high school diplomas, though, he, he disappeared. I went searching from party to party to see if he would show up, but he didn't. I called him the next morning, but I couldn't reach them. Their phone number had been disconnected. I was getting suspicious, so I decided to pay him a visit at his house. I had rung the doorbell twice and waited around for about ten minutes, when I decided to peek in the front windows. That's, that's when…"
The detective crossed his large arms over his broad chest, and nodded curtly. "Go on," he said in a gruff voice.
"Gone, everything gone…" Crispin's voice shook just the tiniest bit, but he regained his composure quickly, "it was like they had never lived there, they had even pulled up the living room carpet. It was the worst day of my life. I felt like Jonathan had died, the way he had left so suddenly, with absolutely no warning. I ran home and checked everywhere to see if he had left me a note explaining why him and his family left but…" his voice trailed off once again.
"Did you have any contact, physical or verbal, with him after that?" The detective asked, starting to get more interested in the Chief's story. He pulled up a chair and sat down, his expression softened just the tiniest bit.
"Yes, I did. Two weeks later in fact," Crispin said, perking up, "I came home from a friend's house one afternoon, and my mom mysteriously pulled me aside in the kitchen. She said someone had called for me earlier, and it had sounded like Jonathan! She told him to call back in an hour, and he had said he would. And he did."
"What did he say?" The detective asked.
"Well, at first I couldn't hear him, because there was a lot of static and a bunch of people were talking loudly in the background, but I caught most of what he said. He told me he was calling me from a payphone in Ireland. They were staying at a hotel in Dublin, but he said they were taking the next flight to England. They were going to live with an Aunt in London for a while, until they could gather their senses together. Before the connection broke off completely, however, the last thing he said to me was, "Threats…Death threats from Vol-…Father is especially worried about our safety…I am his-" It mostly came out in bits and pieces but from what I could understand this guy named Vol or Volly or whatever was scaring the hell outta them, giving the family death threats."
"I wonder why they didn't contact the police when they received the threats," The detective wondered aloud, "They didn't have to go to the ends of the Earth to escape some measly, possibly harmless coercion. Which comes to my next question…a paramedic at the scene of the crime last Friday said he distinctly heard you say "Renee's hair," to the child, and then proceeded to touch it. How did you come to know Renee, Jonathan's wife? Were you in a close or personal relationship with her? The paramedic said you sounded distressed when you saw the child."
"No, we were never lovers, if that's what you are asking. But Jonathan brought her back from London when he moved back to the States, about ten years later."
"Tell me everything from there," The detective said, reaching into his front pocket and pulling out a small notepad. Flipping a few pages ahead, he pulled a pen from behind his ear and looked at the speaker with interest.
Chief Crispin looked at the notepad nervously and asked in a small, strangled voice, "Are you going to use this against me detective?"
"Well if I suspect any uncertainty in your story, I will record it, but otherwise I'm just writing down facts to help me solve this case. I am trying to help you Chief, I'm trying to help save Jonathan and Renee's dignity and good name."
"If that's the case, then, I will get on with it," The Chief gulped but held his head up high.
To Be Continued…