Entry #5

May 9th, 2010 

“I heard that the killer drained the blood from her body”, I heard one of the elders say as they walked past me and Chosen. 

When I walked into church that morning, I hadn’t expected to hear the elders of the church telling the majority of the drama. For the most part, the kids were pretty subdued, especially compared to the old people that sat towards the front of the sanctuary. Even from where me, Arlo, and Chosen were sitting at the back of the Nave, their whispers could be heard over the people praying.

 The Worst part, however, was when a young man interrupted the pastor's sermon to tell the whole church that they had just seen a murder happening outside. As it turns out, two homeless people fighting over a lighter doesn't quite qualify as “murder” to most of the congregation. The whole church body had rushed outside to see this, and the only one not visibly disappointed was Chosen, my best friend. He started cheering on the homeless person with the longest beard, and to his weirdly great delight, his homeless person won the fight. I couldn't help but smile at how he was acting, and that perfectly describes how most people reacted to Chosen. Chosen was a 6 foot tall guy with medium brown skin. Around that time, he wore his hair in cornrows that ended in a bun at the back of his head. His brownish gold eyes matched his skin perfectly, and dimples covered the whole bottom half of his face when he smiled. This was so prominent to his looks that most of the girls in our high school referred to him as “dimples” when talking about him. And believe me, they talked about him plenty.

As the rest of the church started to head back inside, I saw Aubrey’s parents holding the doors open for people. For half a second, I wondered where Aubrey was, but then I remembered what had happened two days ago. I had been surprised to see her parents at church today, but I suppose it was a comfortable place to go during a hard time for them. That comfort, apparently, wasn't a shared emotion with Aubrey. 

Seeing the Saint parents holding the doors had stirred a memory in my mind. The last time I had seen their youngest daughter was at my 16th birthday party a couple weeks ago. Kaiten herself had not necessarily been invited, but I had talked to her a couple of times after becoming friends with Aubrey over the last year. She had always seemed sweet, and never even raised her voice above a soft undertone.  When her and Aubrey arrived, they both approached me and gave me their gifts. Aubrey had gotten me an Oregon Ducks soccer jersey, which I had put on then and there. Kaiten had gotten me a pair of sunglasses, which I had also put on then and there. After accepting my thanks, Aubrey had gone to help Naomi set up the cake table, but Kaiten had gone over and talked to Maeve. I would have thought this was weird, because Mave was a junior and Kaiten was in 8th grade, but Maeve had always been the type to make friends with everyone. It was one of the many reasons to love Maeve, along with her smile and her ability to understand people.

The thought of Maeve at my party led me to thinking about the day that Kaiten had been murdered, when I was sitting in my kitchen talking with mine and Maeve's families. I had thought that Maeve's crying was due to her friendship with Aubrey, but she cried as if she was friends with Kaiten too. After I was told about the murder by my dad, Maeve's muffled sobs had gotten worse than they were before. Arlo tried to wrap his arms around her, but she had quickly stood up from the table and sped out to the hallway, and then out of sight. When she ran past me, I heard her mumble something that sounded like “Going to your bathroom”.

“She hates crying in front of people”, the mayor said in response to the looks that we all shot him. When none of us said anything, he added, “Plus, she probably wants to fix her makeup or something.”

The Mayor hadn’t looked at anyone else when he said this. He kept his eyes trained on the doorway that his daughter had just left out of.

I had thought that I understood Maeve completely. The thought that someone in our town could do that to someone as sweet as Kaiten Saint made me want to run and cry too. I looked at Arlo, and saw that he was feeling the same way. On top of that, the look on his face gave the impression of someone who had smelt something foul.

 After a couple minutes of this intense silence, Arlo shot me a kick under the table to get my attention, and subtly nodded his head towards the exit. He mouthed the name “Aubrey” and I understood what he was trying to tell me. I stood up and accounted to the room,

“I’m going up to my room to get ready”.

“You don’t need to get ready for school. Jeff says they’re closing all the schools in the area for today, just to make it easier to investigate.” My dad explained while placing a pan in the dishwasher. 

“Oh good, then I think I’m going to go to Aubrey’s house. I’m sure Naomi is already there if they canceled school, and Chosen will want to try and make Aubrey feel better.” I responded. My dad nodded, which meant that I had permission to go. I was glad that he gave me permission, but I would’ve gone to Aubrey's house either way. Arlo knew that, and I assumed he was planning on going with me. I think that I was one of the only people in town that really understood how Aubrey would be feeling right now, and I couldn't let her feel like that by herself. When my mom went missing, I at least had Arlo with me, but Aubrey had just lost her Arlo. Things like this tend to break families up, so there is a decent chance that she won't even have her parents to lean on. 

Arlo got up from the table a second after me, and told the room that he and Maeve are going to go with me. The Mayor still didn’t look at us, but he made a “mhm” sound to show his approval.

As we started to walk out the room, my dad seemed to remember something. 

“Before you leave, I need you to drop something off at the hospital for me. I have to get it from the garage, so give me a minute or two.”

“Alright, I'll be waiting by the front door”, I told him, as he jogged past me to go to the garage.

After my dad left the room, the mayor finally snapped out of the trace he seemed to be in. He stared at me and Arlo, who were nearly at the doorway he had been gazing at. He then stood up, towering over the table once again, and cleared his throat. I turned back to look at him, and he pulled a backpack from underneath the table, then took a couple steps towards me.

“Auggie, I have something for you”, he said quietly. He reached into the backpack and pulled something out. In his hands was a knife, with a white wooden handle and sheathed in a dark brown leather case. My uncle looked at the knife for a second, then looked back up at me and said, “If you insist on running around town with my daughter and your friends, even after what happened to that little girl, then I feel like you need something to protect you. You can think of it as a late birthday present or something.”

I walked over to him and took the knife, pulling it out of the sheath as soon as it was in my hands. I was surprised by how heavy the knife was, as it had a good amount of weight behind it. I couldn't help but smile as I saw the blade. It was a beautiful damascus blade, with a weird tooth pattern at the bottom near the handle. I could tell that it was an expensive knife, and probably wasn’t brand new, but it had been so well taken care of that it didn't seem that old. 

I gave my godfather a handshake, and started to say thank you, but I was so excited and thankful that the words came out as a sort of gibberish. 

In response, he laughed and said “Your welcome, you know that was actually made by my dad, so it’s almost one of a kind. I was always holding out hope that I'd have a son to give it to, but that doesn't seem too likely anymore. Anyways, giving it to my godson is good enough for me, especially if it's used to keep my daughter out of trouble.”

As I started to tuck the knife into my waistline, I heard a small gasp come from behind me. I turned to see Arlo staring at the knife. He had apparently not heard what Uncle Mayor Jeff had said from over by the doorway, but his gasp said that he got the general idea. He had a look of bewilderment on his face, and he wouldn't take his eyes off the knife.

The Mayor seemed to take his look as one of jealousy, and said to Arlo, “Don’t worry big guy, I got something much better for you once you put a ring on Maeve's finger”.

I thought that was meant to be a joke, but neither of them laughed. Arlo didn’t noticeably react to Uncle Mayor’s words, but his face came to realization a few seconds later. I didn’t get the feeling that he was listening, or even really aware that the mayor was speaking. 

“Do you think you're going to have to be in the office all day?” Arlo asked after a couple of moments of silence. The way he said it made it seem like the question had forced its way out of his mind, and he hadn’t meant to ask it. 

Mayor Jeff looked taken aback, but answered, “Yeah, I think I’ll have to be. Dealing with this and the pictures is going to be a lot of work, not to mention that the news for all the towns nearby are going to want a statement. You want to come in early and help handle this?” 

“Sure, I can come in a little early today since I have school, but I still want to go with Auggie to see Aubrey first.” Arlo said. As he turned to the door to leave, he added, “Come on Auggie, I just heard Maeve leave the bathroom, and Dad will probably be out here soon.”

As I followed Arlo, I vaguely wondered what the Mayor meant when he mentioned “pictures”. I didn’t let it bother me, since things like that traveled around quickly in small towns, so I'd probably know by tomorrow. 

We met Maeve by the front door, and her dad had been right to assume that she was going to fix her makeup, because it looked just as good as it always did. As she saw us, she raised her arms in the air for a hug, but Arlo wasn't paying attention. He had that same perplexed look on his face, except now his jaw was set and he looked determined. After a couple awkward seconds, he finally looked up and noticed her, but didn't run into her arms like she was expecting. 

Instead, he turned to me and said, “Auggie, I have something I need to go do.”

I was surprised, but not as surprised as Maeve. In a fake calm voice, she said, “ You better be joking.” We both knew he wasn’t, and Arlo hardly ever changes his mind about something.

“I’ll explain later, I promise, but I can’t say anything right now or it will mess everything up.” Arlo said in a quick, but calm way. He then turned to me and continued, “ You're responsible for getting Maeve and your girlfriend home safe, alright?”

“Fuck you, you know she isnt my girlfriend. And did you expect me to make them walk home or something?” 

For the first time today, Arlo smiled, then said, “If she isn’t your girlfriend, then why were you out with her all night?”

Fuck fuck fuck. How did he know? I thought to myself.

“Okay, Don't you have somewhere to be? I thought you were in a rush, so you should probably get going.” I said, trying not to look at Maeve’s amused face.

Arlo walked outside, and we watched through a window beside the door as he got in his silver sedan and sped off. He didn't even say bye to Maeve. 

As we stood by the window waiting for my dad, I noticed an unfamiliar blue pickup truck parked next to my dads white jeep in the driveway. I was going to ask Maeve about it, but when I turned to look at her, it was clear she was one stubbed toe away from crying again. So instead, I texted Chosen and Naomi, telling them that me and Maeve were heading to Aubrey’s house, and asked if they wanted to go. As anyone in the whole world would have guessed, Naomi told me that her parents had dropped her off there about 2 hours ago. Chosen said that I didn't even need to ask, and he would be ready in 10. Normally, Chosen would have driven himself, but he crashed his beat up red camaro last weekend while going to his semi-girlfriends house.

After I told Maeve what the others had said, I heard my dad open and close the garage door. He came from the opposite way of the kitchen, and was holding a medium sized beige package wrapped tightly in packing tape. I took the package from him, and didn't feel anything moving around inside when I moved it. I looked at him suspiciously, which caused him to smile and laugh.

“Don’t look at me like that, it's not what you think it is. A couple weeks ago, I was ordering new bulbs for the x-ray machines at the hospital, but I was tired because I had just worked a double, so I accidentally put our address instead of the hospitals.” 

I laughed and nodded my head, and he turned and started walking down the hallway towards the kitchen. Maeve opened the front door, and we both went outside. As we walked to my car, Maeve started to say something, then stopped. She did this two or three more times, then finally spit out the question.

“Do you know what Arlo had to go and do?”

I saw the worry in her eyes, and tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Nope, but I try not to question him if I dont have to. He probably had to return some library book or something. You can't be the mayor one day if you have overdue fees.”

She didn't look convinced, but she didn't say anything else. I was sure that she thought he was going to see another girl or something like that, but if she knew how much this fool talked about her, she wouldn’t have a care in the world. Well, other than the next murder, but we aren't quite there yet.