GUILTY 25

Detective Gerald Sullivan

Saturday May 20,2016

She sits in bed, propped up against the headboard, fiddling with a photograph of her daughter. I’m standing in the doorway, surveying the room. The walls are a light shade of beige. The King - size bed sits symmetrically in the center of the room, the wall behind. There’s a dresser on the left side of the room and a vanity with a mirror above it on the right. There’s a few photos on the wall, Wedding photos, vacations, Emerald as a newborn. I return my gaze to Danny. She’s still staring at the photo.

I walk over and sit in the chair that is posed in the corner. Doctor Kelvin’s chair. It’s been silent since I entered the room five minutes ago. I told her that we needed to talk. My mind has been on red alert since we arrived at Savannah’s place to find Danny straddling her, clawing at her face. The theory of them being in on this together had quickly departed my mind.

My suspicions about Savannah are slowly diminishing and replacing it are questions regarding Danny. I should feel rage when I look at her. I can’t seem to get a straight answer from her. But right now, as I stare at her, sitting in her bed holding the photo of her missing baby. I can’t help but feel empathy. But the question remains, did she kill her own daughter?

She looks up at me, then, and smiles slightly. ‘Do you know what Memento Mori is?’

I meet her eyes. ‘I don’t.’

She looks at the photo again, then returns her gaze to me. ‘In the Victorian ages, people didn’t have their photo taken until they were dead. The process was too long and complicated to endure while they were alive, so no one was photographed, But when somebody died, it was tradition that they would be photographed. As a memento of their life. Memento Mori. That translates to ‘remember you will die.’ - is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.'

She pauses, looks back down at the photograph of her daughter. ‘Once they were dead, the families would open the eyes, apply make - up, prop them up to a sitting position. The family would pose with the deceased as the photographer took the photos. If you look back at the images, you can hardly tell which family member is dead. They all look the same. There was a lot of dead infants and children that they photographed. Often times, children would die early on. So they’d dress them up and take a family photo.’ She looks up at me again. ‘So most of the photographs that we see from that time period are of dead people.’

‘How comforting.’

She places the photo on the nightstand beside the bed. ‘It’s unsettling, really. Look up the photos when you get a chance.’

I nod my head and think about where to begin. ‘Why don’t we go back to that day - Thursday? Tell me everything that happened.’

‘We’ve already been over this,’ she protests.

‘I know. I have the file. Shower, breakfast, cartoons, nap, missing Emerald. But we’re clearly missing something. I need you to think back and try to remember. Was there anything that seemed out of place? How were you feeling that day? Physically and emotionally?’

‘This is ridiculous!’ she cries. ‘I felt fine! I didn’t have a breakdown. I didn’t kill my own child and forget it ever happened!’

I take a deep breath and stare at her.

‘Please, just go over everything again.’

She presses her lips together and holds my gaze. She sighs, giving in, and recites everything that happened on Thursday, once again.

‘So you’re claiming that the last time you saw your daughter was at two - thirty p.m?’ I ask, looking down at my notes.

‘Claiming?’ she sounds offended. ‘Sure. Yes, that was the last time I saw her.’

‘And you remain firm in your testimony that you never saw Savannah that morning?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you didn’t wake up until Winston was home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you go to your bedroom to lie down? Why did you stay in the living room?’

‘I don’t know, detective.’ She’s getting aggravated. ‘I wasn’t planning on falling asleep. I walked over to sit down for a few minutes and I dozed off. Is that a crime?’

I look to my notepad again, then meet her eyes. ‘I apologized for all the questions, Mrs Waters, but you surely know how this must look. You suffered a severe psychosis, you’ve been suffering from dissociative amnesia and having blackouts for God knows how long, and you were sleeping during the time of the disappearance. What am I supposed to think?’

Her lips begin to tremble and I watch as she brings her hands to her face. She composes herself, and looks at me. ‘It looks so bad, I know that. If I were you, I’d probably think I was guilty as well. But I’m not. I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. I would never hurt my baby.’

‘Well if not you, then Who? Who would want to do this to Emerald or your family?’

Tears well in her eyes once again. ‘I don’t know.’

-------

I’m running out of options. It’s almost five o’clock and soon enough, this day will be gone, just as the one before.

I’m conflicted. Until we find a body, we can’t prove that Danny did anything. For now, this is still a missing - persons case. The child could be out there, somewhere, with a stranger, or perhaps, an acquaintance.

But what if she’s not? What if her decaying body is floating down the river or buried in the woods?

I decide to drive back to Savannah’s and give her one last chance to tell me the truth. She knows something, yet she refuses to tell me. She was most certainly at the Waters’ place on Thursday morning. The neighbour confirmed that. Robbins got back to me with the phone records and confirmed that there was indeed a call that took place between the two of them Wednesday evening. So what am I missing here? Danny had a blackout and didn’t remember her visit? It must have been something pretty bad for Danny to block out and forget completely. Savannah said they were just talking. But that wouldn’t cause Danny’s dissociation. Something else happened that morning. And I need to find out what.

Danny is under temporary house arrest until we can figure this out. I was prepared to haul her into the station and lock her up after the little stunt she pulled at Savannah’s. But Doctor Kelvin pleaded for her to be kept at home. He says her mind is fragile and she doesn’t remember even being at Savannah’s. For some reason, the Chief Lieutenant bought it and agreed to keep her at her home with and ankle monitor. She won’t be leaving again anytime soon, Besides, all we can do now is two things, look for a body and look for any other leads or suspects.

When I get to Savannah’s place, she looks exhausted and petrified all at once. The fear of being taken away and interrogated yet again is evident on her face. But regardless of her ill feelings towards me, she invites me in and we walk over to the couch.

As we sit, I eye her carefully. She’s not fidgeting or presenting any signs of nervousness. No fumbling with her hands or glancing sideways. The only thing I can sense from her right now is that she’s annoyed. And she has every right to be. As do I.

‘Listen, Ms Visagie,’ I begin. ‘This little game that we’re playing is getting quite old. And to be frank, I could care less about your feelings right now. There is a missing child out there. And if you know something that is of any importance, you should tell me. This is not me asking.’

She presses her lips together, looks down at her hands, then sits up straight. ‘Okay.’

‘That easy, Huh?’

She glares at me. ‘Do you want to know what happened or not?’

‘The truth or another lie?’

She continues to glare. ‘If you don’t believe me, it’s not my problem.’

‘Please, Ms Visagie. Let’s get this over with.’

She nods her head, then begins. ‘I was telling you the truth before. Danny and I did have a fight over the phone on Wednesday night, and I did go over to see her on Thursday morning. If she doesn’t remember, that’s not my problem. But anyway. I may have spared some details.’

She looks at me, gauging my reaction.

‘Okay, so it all started Wednesday morning at work. I was eating lunch at my desk - a Greek salad - when I chipped my tooth on an olive seed. It hurt like a bitch. The first thought that came to my mind was Winston. He has his orthodontic practice, so I figured he could help. I didn’t even think about going anywhere else because, well, he’s my friends’ husband and his practice is fairly close by. So I drove over there.

‘He took a look at my tooth and said it would be no problem to fix.’ She pauses and folds her hands in her lap. ‘So I don’t know the full story here, you’ll have to ask Winston about this part, but essentially, he went home that night, somehow the conversation came up about me being at the practice, and Danny freaked out. Went absolutely ballistic. I guess she’d been paranoid for a while that he was having an affair or something, and I guess she had this idea that it was with me!’ She stops again and shakes her head. ‘Please. Yes, there’s no denying that Winston is an attractive man. But there are boundaries, you know. Boundaries that I would never cross. Danny is my friend. I would never have an affair with her husband. And for her to think that of me?’ She shakes her head again.

‘Insulting. But anyways, he tried to explain to her that it was nothing, but she wasn’t having it. Called him a liar and was freaking out on him. So then I get a call from her and she starts yelling at me. We could not calm her down or talk her out of it. She hung up on me and I was mortified for being accused of something like that. But I felt even worse for her because she’s clearly going through a hard time. So the next morning, I left work at lunch and decided to go over to her place to see how she was and to make sure everything was okay with us.’

TO BE CONTINUED….