Chapter 2 - The ruptured forgery
It would have been hard for to anyone believe someone could have done something like that but here in Dawnsbery, it was nearly impossible. The stiff voice of the news anchor filled the tiny living room of Mr. Appleton’s house.
“The body of 12-year-old Finley Wright was firstly discovered by a group of local teens in the middle of Hiltewest’s street last Tuesday evening. His body was found cut in half from waist up but the bottom half of his body, despite the police search, has yet to be found. The cause of death has not been found yet but Police is investigating the case as a homicide.”
When the upper body was found all the fingers from Finley's right hand were cut off and his left eyeball had been carved out leaving everyone who had seen the hair-raising sight of Finley's body wondering, who on earth could do something like that.
Mr. Appleton slowly reached his shaking hand to pet his dog that was resting eyes closed on his lap.
“Did you hear that, my dear Dinby? What an awful thing has happened here in Dawnsbery. And to a kid?” He let out a laugh but it wasn’t a happy one. No, he was on the verge of tears.
The news speared quickly and so Finley was the head of every article the next morning. Every news outlet was talking about it. Some people were scared that the murderer would come and do it again to someone else. Some were even so scared they didn’t let their kids leave the house anymore after that morning. Others kept this as a clear case, It had been the drunken mother he had. See, Maria Wright wasn’t unknown for too many living in the town. When was she trying to steal stuff from the local store or screaming on the streets at 10 pm completely drunk and violating everyone’s home privacy. Needless to say, the police had been in contact with her more than once. There was even a rumor that she wasn’t just a drunk but a drug addict as well.
So immediately after the body was found, police did not just inform her about her son’s death, they arrested her as the main suspect. And of course, everyone secretly wished it had been her. It would have been easier to accept that the drunk had just flipped and for some reason ended up cutting her son in half than to face the possibility that the case wasn't just personal between the Wright's family.
Sandy was sitting in a grey room of Dawnsbery’s police station. A deadly silence lingered in the room as the yellow light of a ceiling lamp twitched and yanked Sandy awake from her thoughts. She lifted her puffy red eyes from her hands and took a shaky inhale as she saw a police officer approach her for the 12th time on that day.
The heavy door opened with a crackle that echoed in a nearly empty room. Two chairs, one table, a lamp and a huge mirror on a wall, that was everything the room hold. Except all the lies told in that room, all the confessions and all the truths the room hold in itself. It all made the room unlikeable.
“So. Sandy Wright. And Finley Wright was your brother. Tell me. When was the last time you saw him? And when is the last time that you saw him that someone can confirm to be true?” The officer spoke awkwardly. His words tottering like a fledgling and sentences ending like he was afraid they would soon take control and run free like a wild horse. Or maybe he didn’t know what to say. Maybe the problem of his uncharismatic speaking wasn’t that he would say too much but that he was lost of words.
“Home. We were at home. I was in the living room watching tv and he was in our room. And then he left. He said he was going out with a friend. It was six o’clock or something”
“Did he tell who the friend was?”
“No.”
“And was your mother home?”
“No”
“Where you two home alone?”
“Yes”
The officer coughed and shifted his dry hands trying to find a better position but ended up placing his hand down on the table the exact way they had been.
“When was the last time you saw him alive that someone can confirm?” He asked again.
“I don’t know. Maybe when we left school. We walked straight home.”
In an identical room, few doors away, Maria was being held for ongoing interrogation. Her tiny body was shaking on a chair and she didn’t seem to be able to sit without tapping her foot on the cold floor or playing with her fingers.
Her mind went from the present moment to chart her entire last week. What had she been going? She didn’t remember much. She had been drunk. The whole week she had wasted on beer bottles, trying to buy beer, trying to find beer bottles, trying to open beer bottles.
She remembered that she had been sitting in a pub with her only friend, Gary Horberg, the whole last night. They had talked about how shit job Gary had and how his wife had left him just last week. They had sat in that dim, putrid and stinky pub for the whole evening. She hadn’t seen Finley the whole day.
And she was angry. She wasn’t a perfect mother. She would not have called herself even a decent mother. She thought she must have been the worst mother in the entire town and that’s why she let her kids be. That’s why she didn’t look after then and why she didn’t get involved with them. She had just figured they didn’t want to be any closer to her than they had to. But all these years, she had done her best to give them a decent house to live in. She had never gone home blackout drunk and she had never drunk inside the house. Her kids knew she was a drunk but she had never let them see that. She wasn’t a good mother but she tried to not make them hate her.
Now she just wished she could change everything. She wished she would have stayed to breakfast yesterday morning. She wished she had said good morning to Finley. And if she could, she would die right now, right here if only Finley could have his life back. Because the death of an own son was insufferable, even for a terrible mother.
“Where were you last night at around 6 pm to 8 pm?” The police officer broke the silence with a question Maria had been asked way to many times already.
“Have told every fucking clown of a cop in this building so many fucking times.
I was. Out. With my friend. In a pub. Called Neston’s bar. I was there ALL night!” Maria hissed through her yellow teeth like she was talking to someone with a hearing disability.
The old police officer signed and closed his eyes for a second and trying to avoid a headache.
“We have talked to your daughter, she said she saw Finley last time on Tuesday evening around 6 pm. He had said he was going out ‘with a friend’. Do you have any idea who the friend was.”
“Why you ask that from me? Like I had any idea. Why don’t you ask her?” Maria shook her head. She was trying to cover up her embarrassment about the fact that she indeed knew very little about what was going on with her children’s lives.
“We did, she told us she was home watching tv while Finley had come to tell her that he was going out without specifying who the friend was. We’re asking this from you in case you know something that can help us with the case. Please, We know you’re upset but we are just doing what we can.” The officer spoke with a monotone voice but the look on his face told he did mean his words too.
“Was watching a tv? At our home?” Maria lifted her face with a concussion clear on her face.
“Yes?” The officer answered and for a while, the room went silent.
“Our tv broke about two months ago. I didn’t get it fixed because no one ever watches it.”
