When Tina witnessed the murder of her, 5 year old, brother Michael, she was only 9. Tina, the only witness to the horrendous event that left her brother mutilated and stabbed, would not speak for the next 3 months. She stood petrified in front of the bed of blood her brother laid upon, as the canvass spread further and further from her sibling until her socks were soaked in the luke-warm gel-like goo that was once pumping through him; at least that’s how she described it later on when we were finally able to interview her about the events.
The three months went by slowly during the investigation with leads and witnesses not providing much in the way of clues as to what took place. The medical examiner mentioned that the death was caused by the loss of blood and not the gashes left behind by clumsy and shallow cuts with a knife. Another thing that was hard to make sense of was why Tina was standing there at all instead of her parents having moved her away or into the house to avoid further trauma from the experience. I gather that Heidi (Tina’s maternal grandmother) being there was merely due to her proximity to the home; after all, the neighbors were very quick to gather as well, before we arrived there was quite a crowd for it being 2230 hours.
My notes state the parents having said that Tina uttered the word: “good” as the first thing in all of her quiet time. As I read her statement, I felt her mom was clear from the beginning: “Monica, can you explain what happened?” After a moment of hesitation, probably gathering her thoughts, she explained. “We were having breakfast, her and I. She seemed to be mumbling, but I looked over and her lips were not moving, so I suppose it was more of a humming sound. She was thinking of something for sure. In the midst of it, and just for a moment, she clearly said it—good—before continuing her humming.” As Monica described the event, she stared down at her hands the whole time, showing what looked like concern for her daughter’s wellbeing, though I cannot reconcile the lack of evidence.
Since I arrived at the scene of the crime, something looked awfully disconcerting. Tina was standing by the body motionless, not crying on her brother’s shoulder, not trying to wake him, and what’s worse, no tears, no glaze in her eyes, just a dull and blank stare and while the only thing with blood was her heavily soaked socks, her hands appeared quite red. From talking to her parents it became clear that Tina and Michael were close and that the relationship of the children with their parents was great. However, their relationship with their infirmed grandparents was much different. The way they tell it, Tina loved her grandfather while Michael hated him. Poor man had dementia and was kept medicated with someone by his side most of the 24 hours in a day. The grandmother was more of an outdoorsy person; her time spent at home was less than I spend showering, if I am to believe what the family said, though I am inclined to think they were exaggerating a bit just trying to lighten the mood.
The parents were nice folk. They met during high school, as the stories from townsfolk go, and married soon after Monica got pregnant with Tina. A short time after that, her husband worked at a local grocery store bagging items mostly and Monica worked at a hair salon. Tina grew up with her grandmother mostly as her parents both worked. A few years later, Michael arrived. Born in time, right weight, and expectations for the child were as good as with any other, and Tina did most of the rearing being big enough.. Michael grew loved by Tina and hated by her grandmother (after all, with him in the picture Heidi saw less of Tina), or so people say (especially the immediate neighbors), but other than that both children had a normal rearing and growing up, and their parents were normal enough.
Getting back to the crime scene, other witness statements were as useless as ever with not one person witnessing anything, including one Randolph Heize who was walking his dog around the time of death. Because the grandmother was at Tina’s house often, going over to see her grandchildren, or rather Tina, it was probably that if anyone saw something it would be grandma; the nature of the statements by all parties showed that with Heidi living in front of their house the times when she showed up unannounced were quite frequent and kept no regular hours either. It was such a complicated case.
“Detective Slater”, queried Esther, the reporter interviewing him for a story to be printed at the town’s most prominent newspaper, “when did you realize that it was Tina’s mother who killed Michael?” “Well, I didn’t. Frank figured it out.”, something that puzzled Esther. “Can you elaborate on the events that led to her arrest?” For a moment, the detective looked out the window into the diner’s half empty parking lot, then over the cars and into passing traffic as if he didn’t have to think about the answer, but rather was in disbelief that something like this could happen and furthermore, that he would have to say it out loud. “You see, Frank over there?” Detective Slater motioned his facial features and lips towards the counter of the very diner they sat where she could clearly see the nametag of the cook flipping things behind a low wall where as she squinted her eyes saw the nametag which read Frank in red lettering and in grease-leaking detail. “You mean the happy flipper over at the kitchen?” she chidingly retorted, having not enjoyed guessing whom the weird lip-pointing was towards, good thing there was no one else in line of sight of the lipping. “I had come for breakfast about a week after the murder. Frank and I are usually alone when he opens in the morning and I only get coffee so he lets me come in while he sets up for the day. That morning, we talked about the high school football team losing again, he mentioned having burned himself for the first time in a long time, and during his recollection, he mentioned something peculiar.” At this point, Esther was hesitant for the detective to reveal the details. “Frank told me he saw Monica come over. Most townsfolk come here during the day, it's just a nice place to meet others over coffee or pie; or both if you’re me” the detective leaned over playfully as he talked about pie, as if his devilish little secret was cute or something. “Please continue detective” I had to remind him, as my details were coming together well for the story I was to present. “Frank said one of her hands had some bandaids and he saw some cuts on them from the red that he could see on her snow-white hands.” and as the detective was wrapping it all up, Monica walked in; her arraignment was to take place later that afternoon. “Excuse me detective!” excitedly interrupted Esther rushing over to Monica. “Excuse me mam, why did you kill your son?”, as Esther said those words in not the softest of voices, the few diner goers present all looked over as if orchestrating. As coldly as anyone could muster a few words and then just spew them like a fan scream at a ball game Monica looked over at me and with a serious look in her face she responded: “He was not my son.”
