Chapter 3
Ready or Not
“I’m telling you everything officers,” the mother yells, “Kayleen tripped on this rug and she fell. It’s just a rug burn! How many more got’cha questions you got for me instead of Michael?”
“Michael?” Corey inquires. “Who’s Michael mam?
“I… uh… I didn’t say Michael! I said ‘my gal.’”
“Mam,” Corey asks, “our officers are doing everything they can. But to do this, we need to find what may have provoked this incident. Now does anyone else live with you and your girls?”
“I… look I already told everything! Why are you persecuting me? How about doing your job?”
The mother suddenly runs outside her house, past her injured daughter. And as officers follow and plead with her compliance. Dedra enters inside the house.
“Dedra,” Corey leads here to the kitchen for updates. “No sign of Wendal or any East Precinct policeman here. Mommy Dearest is blind by choice. She said she never considered contacting the biological father because he’s in prison… for drug dealing.”
“Yeah I researched it minutes ago. His name is Michael. And he made parole recently; has been out for about 3 months now. He always claimed his innocence. Coincidentally, the cop who allegedly busted him was Wendal.”
“But what’s the motive for Wendal to set Michael up for a drug bust?”
The two look outside to notice the attractive mother still being difficult with their police.
“Oh, now I get it.” Corey says.
“Parole includes admission of guilt,” Dedra reasons. “So why would Michael admit to drug possession when he’s innocent?”
The two look inside to notice the emotionally abandoned little girl, Kayleen.
“Oh, now I get it.” Dedra says to herself.
The Amber Alert sounds off once again on a police device.
“Dedra we got a heads up about news reporters arriving here in about an hour.”
“Probably invited by Wendal. So this case has an hour until the political circus comes to town to give the wrong story a microphone.”
As Corey joins the policemen outside, Dedra bends down to address Kayleen. Raising her little head to the rare attention, Kayleen moves her hair and her new teddy bear from her face revealing both types of pain.
“Kayleen,” Dedra manages, “my name is Dedra Kare. I’m a detective and I wanna help you, okay?”
“Okay?”
“Is it true that you turned eight years old today?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“Well happy birthday Kayleen! That’s a really nice teddy bear you have. Was it a gift from today?”
“Yes. It’s from… my real Daddy!”
“From Michael? Kayleen did you see your real dad come here and get Shyrel?”
“Yes…” Kayleen replies as Dedra realizes her fresh blood trail on the carpet.
“Okay, hold on for one second Kayleen. Let me find something to stop your bleeding.”
While scanning the abandoned house for anything to treat Kayleen’s injuries, Dedra finds nothing to consider.
“Kayleen? Where does your mom keep the band-aids or towels or anything?”
“In the adult shelf,” Kayleen says pointing to a padlocked cabinet. “But we can’t cause Mommy and Wendal only open it to give us food sometimes… but only when we’re good.”
Briefly punished by silence, Dedra returns in front of Kayleen to find her cut.
“Okay Kayleen,” Dedra continues while removing her scarf, “what happened today that you remember?”
“Me and Shyrel were playing in our room. And then some men came inside with Wendal to eat the white candy.”
“White candy?”
“The kind that they eat with their noses. Wendal keeps all the white candy it in our closet. But we’re not allowed to touch it.”
“I see,” Dedra understands, still wrapping Kayleen’s hand and watching her absent mother outside. “What happened next honey?”
“Then the telephone ringed. And Wendal said Hello…Hello? But there was no answer! So then me and Shyrel knew it was the secret phone call.”
“Kayleen what’s the secret phone call?”
“Well…”
“You can tell me.”
“Well Daddy isn’t allowed to come and see us. But sometimes he drives by and throws some food over the fence for us because we get hungry. Whenever our telephone rings once, that’s how we know there’s more food for us near the fence. But we have to get it before Mommy and Wendal see it. So when they’re not looking, me and Shyrel pretend like we are playing hide and seek with each other, until we sneak in all the food and hide it. I don’t mean to be bad Miss Dedra. But even when Mommy and Wendal don’t give us food, I still get hungry sometimes. Shyrel said it’s not bad for us to do it. But please please don’t tell Mommy and Wendal ‘cause I’ll get in trouble.”
“I promise I won’t tell them,” Dedra assures. “Please continue Kayleen. Then what happened after the secret phone call?”
“When Wendal was on the phone saying ‘hello… hello,’ Shyrel whispered to me that we had to get back in our room before Wendal went back in to eat the white candy.’ I said Wendal might catch us. So she ran so fast in the room, but I wasn’t fast enough and Wendal blocked me.”
Dedra pauses as Kayleen continues.
“Shyrel ran into the backyard. And I ran the other way there. We saw 2 Teddy Bears and some more beef jerky for us to hide.”
“Wow.”
“And then we even saw Daddy at the Stop Sign. And we waived to him. But Wendal saw it from our window. So he ran past our fence and shouting at Daddy. And then Shyrel started screaming that we wanna live with Daddy.”
“Yeah.”
“And then Shyrel whispered to me ‘let’s just run away on da-counta-three. But I was scared, I didn’t want to get in trouble. Then Shyrel ran outside really fast and jumped inside Daddy’s car. And then Wendal shooted a gun. He drove away really fast.”
“Sure,” Dedra reacts in a softer voice.
“Mommy hit me so hard. It was worser than any other time! And then she said I can never leave.”
“Oh my!”
“It’s not fair that I’ve been good all day but they still didn’t give me any food today.”
“You’re right honey,” Dedra manages. “It’s not fair.”
Dedra notices the mother and all the policemen coming back.
“Miss Dedra? Can you take me where Daddy and Shyrel are? It’s more safer and more fun when we’re with Daddy. He never hurts us. There’s more food and there’s even toys at his house. It was good before the judge made us go with Mommy. Can you please take me to be with Daddy and Shyrel? I wanna go. Please Dedra?”
“Kayleen… I…”
“Please Miss Dedra. I’ll give you my teddy bear.”
Punished by silence once more, Dedra stares at Kayleen and scans the outside view of the window as everyone is arriving back inside.
“Exactly how good are you at hide-n-seek?”