Get It Together Man

I'm staring at the young lady in her bikini with a frown on my face. It is the middle of the day and she is already half-naked. I take out my badge and show it to her.

"Hello, I'm Detective Marks this is Detective Woodward. We're with the L.A.P.D. We are looking for Aliah, is she here?"

"A man in blue...that's so hot. You guys can come in. Take a seat and wait here. I will get her for you"

As she walks up the stairs, I can't help but notice her fine buttocks as the bikini that she's wearing doesn't leave much for the imagination. Then when she's walking away, she looks back at us and winks as if she wanted to give us a show. Woodi eagerly asks;

"Was she winking at me or you?"

"Get it together man...she's in college and you could be her father"

"Dude, only if I slept with her mother when I was ten years old. I'm not that old."

"And you're married, did you forget that small fact?"

"No...I'm just appreciating the beauty"

As we're discussing the morals of what just happened, Aliah comes walking down the steps. She walks right up to us and I introduces us to her;

"Hi there, I'm Detective Marks, and this is Detective Woodward. We're with the L.A.P.D. Do you know why we are here?"

She looks at us as if she knows what's going on and says;

"Yes, my boyfriend called to say that you were looking for me."

"Okay, so you know that we need more information about Sarah?"

Then Aliah gets a look on her face as if she just got a bright idea and then share it with us;

"Why don't I get the sorority mother to sit with us, then you can get information from the both of us?"

"That's a great idea, we need as much info as we can get. We need justice for Sarah and can't do it if people aren't willing to help us"

"You can follow me, Detectives"

We walk through the house. It looks like a beach party is going on. All the girls are in swimwear while some are tanning and others are swimming. Then Woodi says;

"Do you see this... it's like all the angels came down to earth for a visit and joined this sorority?"

Aliah just laughs and says;

"Yes, it's our off day. So, we tend to enjoy it as much as possible."

Then I ask Aliah;

"Was Sarah also part of the sorority?"

"Yes, everyone knew her. She was well-liked by everyone."

We get to a lady that lies on the lazy boy, she seems a bit older than the rest of the ladies here. Then Aliah stops and introduces us;

"Detectives, meet Mrs. Julia Harrington. She's our sorority mother and looks after us. You know to make sure we don't get into trouble...?"

I stretch out my hand to greet her. Aliah then turns to Julia and says;

"I asked them to come and talk to you as well regarding Sarah."

Julia takes off her sunglasses and then I say;

"I'm so glad that we get to chat with you, Mrs. Harrington. With all the evidence that we got so far, this house comes up every time with the disappearance and murder of Sarah."

"Please call me, Julia. What do you mean, do you think that we had something to do with her disappearance or her murder?"

"Um...no Julia, that's not what I said. I said that this house comes up every time. I never said that this house is guilty of something."

"Okay, so what do you need from me, Detectives?"

"We need some information, more background information regarding Sarah. To help us find the guy responsible for Sarah's murder."

"Well, Sarah was well-liked. Straight A student, showing up for classes while the other took time off. I think because she didn't come from money that is why she understood what was needed to work harder to succeed. She wasn't like some of these pretentious girls. She cared about helping other people. It sometimes got her into trouble with some of the girls"

I lift an eyebrow at her statement and then she continues.

"She was expected to be like them. Only the girls in the sorority are the priority. But Sarah couldn't do that, she was different and no one could change her. She was even set to become the house ruler. There were more girls that looked up to her, so they wanted to vote her in as the house ruler."

I look at her confused and ask;

"What's a house ruler, if I may ask?"

"That's the girl that makes the decisions of what the girls in the house must follow or not follow. The normal initiation ceremony rules still apply. But the normal day-to-day decisions, that's the house ruler job."

"So, you said that "she was set to become the house ruler." Did she or didn't she become the house ruler?"

"She didn't, a problem came up with her during that time. She started to become distant and started to change. At the time no one knew what was going on but Aliah can fill in some of the blanks here"

I turn to Aliah and then she takes a seat while explaining.

"Sarah started to pull away from classes. Everything just got weird, she doesn't want to go out with the girls anymore. She started to skip classes and shied away from people that she used to help. That's when we knew something was up with her...."

I can see that there is a sadness behind her eyes as she continues.

"...I and a few sisters cornered her and asked what's going on. She tried to give us the run around with some dull excuses. But then it got out that one of the guys tried to rape her at a party, but she got away somehow. When the police questioned her she couldn't tell them who it was cause she never saw his face..."

It is clearly hard for her to tell us this but she pushes through.

"...that's when she started pulling away from people because she didn't know who he was and was afraid. Then all the girls in the house started to realize small stuff disappearing. From their coffee mugs, toothbrushes, and even more personal stuff, like our underwear. We first thought it was a prank or it got lost in the laundry room. So, that's when our mother installed cameras in the house to see what's going on. That's when we finally found out that we had a stalker"

"And you saw the stalker on the cameras?"

"Yes. We watched as he spent hours just standing outside Sarah's room looking in. After a few days, he finally got the courage to go into her room. It got so intense that he would break into the house when all the girls were sleeping and just stood in the halls looking into the rooms of the girls, especially Sarah's room. He was a really nasty character. So, we took the footage to the police and he got arrested. He lost his scholarship and his frat buddies kicked him out of the house. He got a few years behind bars for what he did."

Finally, we get some kind of breakthrough and hope raises in my chest. I then ask Aliah attentively;

"Name please, I need his name?"

"It was Bil...or Billy. Yes, Billy Johnson, I think."

"Okay, now we have a suspect. But just one more thing, why the party? Why wasn't it held here?"

Aliah gets a sad look on her face and looks away like she's trying to avoid the question. I speak a bit louder to try and get an answer to my question;

"Aliah, come on now. We got this far, answer my question."

She starts to cry and says;

"It was a celebration party for Sarah, okay."

"A celebration party for what? What were you celebrating?"

"It was the five-year anniversary of her attempted rape, okay. The date that she got away and he could never finish what he started. That's why we couldn't have the party here because it wasn't something worth celebrating for the sorority. So, we were forced to have the party somewhere else, okay"

I feel an anger pushing up in my heart as I listen to what she is telling us about how nobody really cared for Sarah. It feels like I'm going to burst any minute now. Woodi looks at me, he can see the anger on my face. He knows that he needs to end the conversation with them;

"Thank you, so much for your cooperation in this matter. If we have any more questions we will be in contact with you."

Woodi pulls me up by my arm as he's trying to get me to leave. I stand up and start walking with him but then I turn around and decide to speak my mind;

"You were sitting on all this information and you never told the cops? Neither you nor the roommate of Sarah called the police when she has gone missing? Nobody cared for her...You all say you did, but now I know you didn't care one bit"

Woodi then pulls me even harder to get me out faster. But Aliah screams after us while everyone is staring now, causing a huge scene;

"How can you say that we didn't care?!"