Mistakes

Tense — the only word we can use to describe the whole situation in the interrogation room. The lights were dim, deepening the tension. Detective had a hard expression on his face, not letting a single emotion come out of the cell he was keeping them in. Che Garcia was sitting in the suspect’s chair tapping her foot on the hard floor every second. She was thinking of every possible outcome of this situation and the one that seemed closest to reality was her getting 25 years penalty. Both detectives were quiet for a while waiting for the suspect to crack, but Che did not show any sign of it.

Detective Roger took a deep breath and with his hands on the table leaned in towards Che trying to give her a scare. He was known for his cold bloodiness, so it was not a surprise that he started an interrogation in a not so nice way.

“Miss Garcia, I won’t sugarcoat anything. You killed a person, what’s worse, you killed an innocent person. The guy was a great person, he could have had a great future, but because of you, he won’t. Are you proud of yourself?!” — The rage was clearly heard in his voice. It was not much of a surprise considering that he was good friends with the victim’s family. Che still did not show any sign of nervousness. She looked Detective Roger straight in the eye and said in a calm voice.

“Innocent until proven guilty, detective…”

Her words set off Detective Roger even more. It was clear that he would not be able to keep his cool, that is why the second detective who was sitting all quiet decided to step in.

“Blake you can go, I will take it from here.”

Detective Roger wanted to say something, but decided not to and left. Even though Che did not show it, she was very tense with Detective Roger around. That is why when he left, she felt that a big rock was taken from her shoulders. Now it was only her and Detective Jones in the room. As it seemed he did not want to repeat Blake’s mistake and decided to turn the questioning around by starting it with simple, harmless questions.

“So, how are you feeling Miss Garcia?”

Che could see right through his act. What brought her here was snooping around and who snoops around more than a teenager whose dream is to become a detective? The number of movies, books, articles she has seen or read about crime was enough to keep her from making a mistake of talking too much.

“I would have felt better, if you did not use that “Good cop” act on me

“Listen miss Garcia. This is no time to be a smart mouth. You must understand that we want to help you and we will be able to do that only if you cooperate.”

Detective Jones was always good with his words, so it was not hard for him to twirl out of this situation. Che started thinking about everything that was on stake, one of them being her father. A father who could not even make bacon without burning it. If she got caught now, he would be left all alone.

“I will answer all of your questions,”

Hearing this made Detective Jones overly happy because it was the first times his good cop act worked.

“I am very happy that you- “But I have my own conditions!”

Hearing this was not as pleasurable to Detective as hearing that she will cooperate, but he still decided to negotiate with her.

“I am ready to hear it out.”

The first thing that came to Che’s mind was her father.

“First tell Detective Jones to come in with my father.”

It did not seem like anything big to Detective Jones, he took out his phone and informed Blake about change of plans.

10 minutes later, two men were at the doorstop. Che’s father, Elijah Garcia was the first to go in. If stares could kill, his one would have just done that and even buried her 6,6 feet deep. Detective Roger has not calmed down either judging by the invisible smoke coming out of his ears.

“Young lady-

Mr. Garcia wanted to say something to Che, but she interrupted him before he even said a simple sentence.

“Listen, I know you are mad and everything but whatever you have to say, it can wait. Now all three of you will be quiet and I will tell you everything from start to the end, deal?”

All three men nodded in sign of agreeing and Che took it as a sign to start telling the story.

3 hours ago

Snooping around was one thing that Che Garcia could not be kept away from. Since the start of the year, there has been a strange series of suicides at her school, all of them happening on Thursday. That is how TSC (Thursday Suicide Chain) started. And she who dreamed of becoming a respected Detective Garcia one day decided to solve everything on her own considering that police did not pay much attention to these suicides saying that “It must have been another depressed kid.”. She started spying after every single class at her school. She would have called the principal from her father’s phone and changing her voice would have said that “My daughter is sick, so she won’t be coming to school for a while”. After that, the possibility of Mr. Garcia finding out were thin.

On every lesson, she would have hidden in the air vent that was connected to the room that she had to spy on and getting into a comfortable position would find out different things. The most exciting ones she heard were about some shy girl becoming a queen bee and some queen bee being abused by her family. Nothing that could have helped her.

Spying on Thursdays was the hardest for her because on those days, the smell in air vents was unbearable. She still had to do it at some times and today was the day when she had to spy after the last, Senior class.

Like every Thursday, the smell in the air vent was awful which kept her sneezing uncontrollably. But other than smell, it was clear that something else was wrong with the air vent today. It was creaking every time she moved. The place where she first stood was not good for spying, so she decided to move forward where the smell intensified. Her sneezes became uncontrollable and the creaking would not stop either.

Out of sudden, the air vent opened. To be more exact, broke and fell on the guy who was sitting under it with Che following. It was way too early to say if the guy was dead. Only thing that fell on him was the one that people open to get into the air vent and Che did not weigh much either. The second she realized what happened, she got off the guy and tried to check if he was conscious, but before she could get to that, two guys held her arms from behind. Some girls started panicking and others started calling the police.

That is how Che ended up in a dull investigation room.

Present:

The three men stood there dumbfounded until Detective Roger decided to clear up one thing.

“So, you are saying that you wanted to investigate those series of suicides, but ended up killing someone on your own?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it…”

Mr. Garcia was happy to hear that his daughter was nothing other than a teenager seeking adventure, but he still could not come face to face with the fact that she was going to get arrested.

“You understand that even though the murder was not on purpose, you will still have to answer for it.”

Detective Jones said it after thinking for a while.

Che knew that she would still get arrested even before she told them the whole story, but it did not bother her that much.

“I know. But that was not the reason I told you everything. Even though I will get arrested, I don’t want to hear about more suicides at my school. And for that to stop, I need your help.”

Che first turned towards her father and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Dad, remember how you always wanted to be a detective. You have a chance now.”