eye of the beholder

Detective Rhea Townsend sat down at her desk with a heavy sigh. She hated the cases with dead kids – especially when the primary suspects were kids too. Rhea hated putting kids behind bars, but she knew that sometimes it was unavoidable. Murder can’t go unpunished, she thought to herself. She had just gotten back from the crime scene, and her stomach wouldn’t be the same for days. There was such hatred and anger in that scene – so much emotion, passion, and desperation. It was all so... teenage. Rhea’s concentration was broken by the deep tones of her partner, Darren Apollo.

“Oh, I know that look, and I hate that I’m only going to make it worse.” Darren’s usual smile had been obliterated from his face after talking to the three suspects. He had arranged for Joanne, Graham, and Emilia to be taken to the station to begin questioning while Rhea worked on the crime scene.

Rhea looked up, and without a hint of emotion in her voice, spoke three words. “Just hit me.”

Darren, although surprised, gave Rhea what she wanted. He cut right to the chase. “Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that there are security tapes being processed in evidence as we speak, and it’s looking like we’ll have that to verify tonight’s events with the three statements we’ve been given.” Darren plopped the case file containing the statements on Rhea’s desk. “None of the kids asked for a lawyer, they were all very forthcoming with information. Their parents have been informed of everything that happened tonight and are currently waiting for me to talk to them.”

Rhea let out a sigh of relief. She hated talking to the parents. Everything that Darren had said had been, as promised, good news. However, there was such pain behind his blue eyes that Rhea knew what was coming was going to be far worse. “And the bad news?”

Darren hesitated before he answered her. “All three statements are signed confessions.”

Rhea was shocked. In her twelve years of police work, she had never seen anything like this. People tried to cover for their loved ones, sure, but usually once they heard the word “perjury” they switched to the truth right away. Yes, innocent people pleaded they were guilty and guilty people pleaded that they were innocent. However, not once in hundreds of cases, had Rhea Townsend ever seen three people confess to the same crime in such a way.

“Well then,” Rhea opened the case file and picked up the first of three confessions. “Let’s get to work.” The first statement to greet Rhea’s eyes was Joanne O’Connor’s. Written with small, precise, and organized strokes, Rhea could tell Joanne wasn’t freaking out. She repeated these sentences over and over in her mind before writing them out. “Alright, Joanne. Let’s see if you’re lying.”

‘I, Joanne O’Connor, swear that the following statement is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These are the events that took place from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm on this day February 17th, 2021. I, Emilia Roberts, and Graham Stevenson arrived at the household of Connor Haas and his family for a dinner that only Emilia had been invited to. Graham’s and my intentions were to confront Connor on his recent behavior toward Emilia.

When Connor opened the door, he was surprised and disappointed to see Graham and me instead of just Emilia. However, he allowed us inside and made a point of telling us that his parents were not at home. He brought us to the dining room, where a dinner for two was set up, and he encouraged us all to sit down. He expressed disappointment in Emilia, and Graham responded to this by yelling at Connor. The fight got worse and worse, and eventually, I got sick of it. I picked up the candlestick in the middle of the table and I killed Connor.’

Rhea put down Joanne’s statement. There wasn’t nearly as much information as she was hoping for; Rhea was going to need a lot more from Joanne to understand what happened that night. Detective Townsend was usually pretty good at knowing when people were lying, and something about Joanne’s statement just felt off.

“Hey, Darren?” Rhea called.

The aforementioned gentleman poked his head out from the breakroom door with a smile. “Already working on your coffee, Rhea!”

“Thank you,” Rhea was so sweetly surprised by Darren’s kind gesture, she almost forgot what she had meant to ask him. “This Joanne O’Connor... what’s she like?”

“Well, I got a real matronly vibe from her.” Darren’s voice crooned out of the breakroom and over to Rhea’s desk, quickly followed by his body. “She’s definitely protecting Emilia or Graham, or even both. I don’t think she’s so mother-bear that she’d lash out and kill a kid, but - “

“But it’s not outside the realm of possibility for this case.” Rhea interrupted. “That’s what I was thinking. Her statement sounds manufactured, what was she like to talk to?”

“Well, she was pretty strait-laced, which I found odd, considering she was confessing to murder. She only got defensive when I suggested that she might be leaving some details out.” Darren took a long sip of his own coffee, deep in thought. “Graham was the exact opposite, though. I mean, I almost thought of sedating him he was so frantic. No matter what questions I asked him, he gave me the same exact shpeal, and it’s exactly what he wrote for his statement. That kid’s hiding something, I just can’t tell if it’s out of guilt or protection.”

Rhea picked up Graham’s statement next. It fit Darren’s description of Graham’s state – chaotic. Scrawled over the page were the words,

‘I, Graham Stevenson, swear that the following statement is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These are the events that took place from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm on this day February 17th, 2021. Emilia Roberts was invited to dinner by Connor Haas, her ex-boyfriend who had not accepted that he was her ex-boyfriend, at Connor’s house. She wasn’t going to go, but when Joanne O’Connor and I decided to go instead, she got in the car too. We got to Connor’s house and he was really angry that Jo and I were there, but instead of yelling at us, he yelled at Emilia like he always did. One thing led to another, Connor swung a punch at Emilia, and I picked up a candlestick and killed him.’

Rhea put her hands to her head, massaging her temples before speaking. “This case gets weirder the more we look into it, Darren. I mean, both statements make it seem like the events leading up to the swing of the candlestick are the same. They’re both centered around whatever was happening between Emilia and Connor. Have you talked to her yet?”

Darren shook his head. “I tried to, but she was in shock. She’s been in the room with a blanket and some water since we got here. I was thinking maybe we could talk to her together?”

“Yeah,” Rhea stood up from her desk and began to head down the hallway toward Interrogation Room #1. “I was just about to ask the same thing.”

Rhea knocked on the door quietly before walking into the cold, dim room. Emilia stood out amongst the cool tones of the table and walls – her hair pulled into a messy bun, mascara running down her face, and her clothes disheveled as she sat wrapped in a blanket. There were a couple bruises forming on Emilia’s face, which told Rhea that someone had done much more than just yell at Emilia.

She and Darren sat down slowly and quietly. “Good evening, Emilia. I’m Detective Townsend, and I believe you’ve already met my partner, Detective Apollo?” Emilia nodded. “Okay, I know this isn’t going to be easy, but I need you to tell me everything that happened tonight. It’s my understanding that Connor was your boyfriend, so -”

“He wasn’t.” A shaky voice broke into Rhea’s statement. “My boyfriend. I’d broken up with him so many times, but he just seemed to forget every time. No matter how many times I told him it was over, he just kept trying to convince me it wasn’t.”

“Alright, so Connor wasn’t your boyfriend. Good to know. Now, I need you to tell me everything that happened tonight.” Rhea tried to put as much compassion into her voice as she could, but that felt a little weird. Emilia could be a murderer, for all Rhea knew.

“Okay, but I – I don’t know...” Emilia’s voice quieted to a whisper as tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t really know where to start.”

Darren answered. “How about the beginning?”

Again, Emilia nodded. “So, um, this Monday, when I opened my locker at school, there was an invitation to a dinner with Connor at his house for today. He made it look all fancy, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it, but then Graham saw it. I told him that I wasn’t going to go, and he said that was a good idea. Then, later that day, at lunch, he, Jo, and I were joking around, and the invite came up. Jo said that she was fed up with Connor’s antics, and she was going to go and give him what-for.” Emilia’s eyes widened when she realized what she just said. “Ugh! No, like – that sounds so bad oh my gosh. We were just joking, like stupid teenagers. Like when your friend is in a bad relationship and you joke about beating them up? That’s just what it was – Jo didn’t kill Connor.”

“Really?” Rhea looked at Darren and then back at Emilia. “That’s alright, we all make poorly-worded jokes every now and then. Please, go on.”

Emilia sighed with relief and took a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing her recollection of what happened. “Okay so uhh... okay. Nothing really happened for the rest of the week, and then today, when Graham, Jo, and I were on our way to my house to hang out, Connor said something about how he was looking forward to seeing me later. Then we got to talking about Connor, and I told Graham and Jo about why I broke up with him this last time. Oh, you’ll probably want to know that too. Uh, he called me worthless, told me my family was good for nothing, and that if my brother even looked at – Connor said a lot of harmful things all the time. Usually, when we were ‘together’ there weren’t any rumors about me or my family. However, when we weren’t... the whole school would think that my mom was cheating on my dad with the English teacher, I was pregnant with the Math teacher’s baby, or my brother was so high on any form of drug he could get his hands on that he got a sixteen-year-old pregnant. I’d gotten used to the rumors, and when Jo and Graham found out that it was Connor who spread them, they got angry. They wanted to confront him. They came up with the idea that we would all go to dinner at Connor’s house tonight. That way... that way I wouldn’t be alone with Connor after he found out that Jo and Graham knew. He always found ways to blame everything on me, and he was always so angry.”

“Emilia,” Darren interjected, “You don’t seem to have much issue with referring to Connor in the past tense.”

“No,” Emilia said. Her tone was cold and all the fear left her eyes. As she said her next few words, Rhea knew she was telling the truth. “I don’t because I’m glad he’s gone.”

Before anyone else could say anything, the three were interrupted by a knock on the door. It opened, and a cheery fellow had a simple message for Rhea. “Detective Townsend, the tapes are ready.”

“Great.” In that moment, an idea planted itself in Rhea’s head. She knew it would be risky, but she was willing to go for it. “Hey, uh, can you bring in the two other suspects and a TV to play the tapes on?”

Darren lifted his eyebrow in surprise, but quickly gave an approving nod to Rhea when she looked back at him.

After a little while, the TV was rolled in, all three suspects were sitting in a row, and Detectives Townsend and Apollo were about to get to the bottom of Connor Haas’s demise. The two stood on one side of the one-sided glass watching three completely silent teenagers.

“Do you want to take this one, Apollo?”

Darren chuckled. “No, you can take it away, Rhea.”

The two walked into the Interrogation Room together, and Detective Townsend got right to the point. “Now, I’m sure you’ve all realized that it’s an odd practice to put all three suspects in the same room for any amount of questioning, but I have my reasons for this. You are all here, as I’m sure you are aware, because Connor Haas is dead, and you three were the last people to see him alive. You’ve all given us separate, signed statements, that you swear are the truth. However, there’s one problem with that. All of you confessed to murdering Connor. Tonight, we’re lucky, in that we have security tapes of the Haas household giving us the exact identity of Connor’s killer. I have yet to watch it, and so does Detective Apollo here, so why don’t we all find out together – who killed Connor Haas?”

Rhea lifted the remote and pressed play. Without audio, in black and white, the five individuals were met with a scene of four teenagers at a dining table with only two place settings. The conversation seemed civil enough at first, but even someone with the observation skills of a barely conscious moose could see that Graham was the first to raise his voice. He and Connor quickly got into an argument. Joanne could be seen interjecting every now and again with just as much anger as Graham. Emilia, however, stayed seated at the table and remained quiet.

Connor rose from his seat and kneeled next to Emilia. He asked her a question, and though no one in the room heard what it was, Connor clearly did not like Emilia’s answer. He raised his hand, and Connor hit Emilia. He got in a few shots before Joanne and Graham got to him. They pulled him away from Emilia and pushed to the other side of the room. Joanne quickly attended to Emilia while Graham kept Connor away from the two young women.

Very slowly, Emilia rose from her seat. She grabbed the candlestick from the center of the table, and she walked over to Connor and Graham. Joanne and Graham were clearly confused, and when Emilia brought the weapon down on Connor’s head, the horror on their faces was impossible to miss.

“Well,” Rhea muttered as she turned off the TV. “It seems we have our answer.”