4
"So... a month before they move you, hm?" Jan huffed, "I'm sure that will give your mother some relief. She was completely distraught when they told her you would have to reside with her until they could find you another place. Daughter or not, no one wants a murderer under their roof."
"Janice! You are out of line!" Her uncle reprimanded and glowered at his wife. "And you knew about this set up? Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's fine, Uncle Kevin." Katie breathed our tiredly. "Jan has never liked me, even before all that crap happened. I'm used to her perpetual state of bitch where I'm concerned. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have work and homework to do." Her uncle's wife, Janice, had never cared for her and she never knew why really. Their daughters never really cared for her either. They were jealous of her relationship with her uncle—their father—because he took a lot of time with her.
Her uncle looked shocked and her aunt fumed and huffed, stomping back up the basement stairs. "I'm sorry about Jan. I didn't realize she treated you like that before...She may not agree to me helping you..." He couldn't even say what happened because he believed she was guilty too but, he still loved her like she was his.
"It's fine. I've gone fifteen years with no contact from family and the last year treated like a criminal in my own mother's house. Trust me, I got the message." Katie said, sitting back down at her desk and putting her ear buds in. Her mind went right back into what she was doing. She couldn't allow herself to drift into thoughts and feelings revolving around her family. They believed her to be a murderer. The entire community did, well, a good many of the authorities involved in her case knew she wasn't but, maintained that she was to cover for the real murderers.
Later that evening, after all of her work was done and she had gone as far with homework as she could, she decided to review media files surrounding her case. There were six other people involved. Casey Brandt, Nicole Leeks, Emma Pierce, Pierce Newton, Joshua Madison, and Elliott Rand. They were All Stars in basketball, track, baseball/softball, soccer, and football. The community loved them and celebrated them while, Katie was a no body. Her parents worked long hours and most of the time, double shifts on their jobs and second jobs in addition to that. Her mom was a nurse at the local hospital and her father was a machine operator at the auto parts plant. They both had part time jobs or too. Her dad worked as a delivery guy for a pizza place and her mom worked as a waitress at a soul food restaurant. They both worked seven days a week, which meant she spent a lot of time alone or with relatives until she got a job and joined a few clubs and volunteer programs when she started high school. That fateful night, she had stepped outside the back of the diner she waitressed at after school and on weekends and witnessed the All Stars beating the crap out of a homeless man. She screamed and called for help, and they took off running so, she went to help the man but, he was already gone. Her boss of four years came out and called 911 because she was on her knees beside the old man crying hysterically. She was covered in his blood and one look at her boss and she knew that he thought she had done it. She gave the police her statement and they insisted she be checked out by the paramedics. Basically they were collecting her DNA to verify that she wasn't the one that had killed the old man. Then they took her home and her work uniform was confiscated as evidence from her shoes through to her underwear.
As the weeks went on and the investigation dragged out, she and her parents became the target of attacks from the families of the accused and their fans and sympathizers, some of whom included the local police. Just before graduation, the police decided that she was the new prime suspect in the case and exonerated the All Stars who all had sports scholarships to top name schools in the fall. She lost her Salutatorian status and her Ivy League scholarship before she even went to trial. She was allowed to receive her diploma but, she couldn't be present at the graduation ceremony. She spent the entire summer locked in the county jail's juvenile solitary unit until her trial that fall, which she was found guilty of second degree murder with some trumped up testimony from her boss. The All Star's all managed to have alibis—each other, of course—and their parents vouched for them. Her court appointed attorney and the bribed judge were not about to allow some nobody, uppity, smart aleck, little black girl cause problems for their town favorites over a useless old bum sleeping in the back of the diner.
They hadn't even mentioned the old man's name but, she remembered it. Edgar Callum. He was about her father's age and took to sleeping back there in winter months because her boss, Pop Givens, would prop up old crates against the fence and he could slide between them and have a pretty decent shelter. They would talk when she took out the trash sometimes and, she would always save him some of her one free meal and take it out to him on her lunch break. He had been her friend and confidante. She never would have hurt him.
Kaitlynn wiped the tears from her face as she shut down the computer for the evening. She couldn't bear to look at anymore articles and videos. Today was the sixteenth anniversary of his death. She lit a candle, said a prayer, and set aside some money to donate to the homeless shelter in his name the next day. She had not been there since her release because she had been hospitalized around the time it occurred last year so; she felt it was time to pay them a visit.