Character Sketch

Chapter 4 - Interrogation

A policeman walked down the steps between the stadium seating in Professor Eastman’s class.  Professor Eastman’s lecture droned on as he talked to the chalkboard about the formula they were currently exploring.  All eyes were on the officer as he approached the Professor. The professor turned as he heard the steps on his stage area, he jumped back as he made eye contact with the policeman and scowled.  The policeman whispered in the teacher’s ear. Professor Eastman pointed in Kaitlin’s direction.


“That’s her,”


The officer made his way over to where Kaitlin sat.


“I need you to come with me Miss.”


“Is my family okay?” she asked.  Suddenly she was reliving the nightmare of being pulled out of school the day her father had had a heart attack at work.  Her movements seemed slow and weighted.  She gathered up her books, picked up her backpack and checked to make sure she hadn’t left anything at her chair. A tear trailed down her cheek as she followed the policeman up the stairs and out of the classroom.


“I was just told to bring you to the station miss,” the officer replied.  “Are you all right?” he asked as he turned to see her pale face and tear filled eyes.


    “I’ll be okay.  You don’t know what this is about?”


“I think it’s about a girl who was attacked last night?”


“Is it someone I know?”


“Melissa Connors.”


“I don’t recognize the name.”


“They’ll tell you about it at the station.”





Jake held the bottle of water they had given him in both his hands, his elbows resting on the table that dominated this office.  Brian his legs and arms crossed was turned sideways on his chair with his eyes shut.  Calvin his chair tipped back on two legs with the back against the wall swung his legs in rhythm to some music in his head. They stopped talking to each other about half an hour ago.  They had been here twice that long.  Jake had called the stadium to let the coach know they would not be coming to practice.  His coach had insisted on coming down the minute he found out they were at the campus police station. They still hadn’t seen him.


The door to the office opened.  Calvin pushed off the wall and his chair ‘thunked’ as the front legs hit the floor.  Brian opened his eyes and turned straight in his chair as Sergeant Yeargin entered the room followed closely by Coach Peters and a woman carrying a stenograph machine on spindly legs.


“Legally these boys don’t have to talk to you without representation.” Coach Peters said.


“They aren’t being charged with anything.” Sergeant Yeargin replied.


“We want to cooperate sir if it will help bring in the attacker,” Jake said to his coach.


“I don’t want these boys names associated with these attacks in way, shape or form,” the coach demanded.


“We’ll do our best to keep it out of the school or local papers.” Sergeant Yeargin said.


“Let’s get started.” Sergeant Yeargin motioned to the empty chairs for the coach and stenographer to sit down.


“I’ll also be recording this statement,” he said placing a small hand held recorder on the table.


“Would you please state your full names for the record?”


“Jacob Andrew Perry”


“Brian Adair Evans”


“William Calvin Cooper”


“Mr. Perry, you go by the name Jake?”


“Yes, sir.”


“For this statement we will refer to you as Jake if that’s okay with you?”


“Yes, sir.”


“Tell us the events of last night January 25th in your own words and try to put in the time of events as best you remember.  I may interrupt with a few questions.”


“Okay, Brian, Calvin, Barbara, Monica and I had agreed to meet at the library at 8:30 to study.”


“Barbara and Monica?”


“Barbara Tipton, Brian’s current girlfriend and Monica George, Calvin’s long-time girlfriend.”


“Okay”


“I was a little late.”


“As usual.” Calvin chimed in.


“Anyway we found a table down on sub-floor 2.  As we walked into the study area I felt someone staring at me. I turned to see a girl at the table behind me giving me the look.”


“The look?”


“I’m sorry, she was staring at me.  I wouldn’t have paid any attention but she immediately ducked her head and started writing furiously in a notebook.  Some how I knew she was writing something about me.  I know that sounds egotistical but it turns out I was right.  I decided to go check it out.  A little harmless flirting, you know.”


“Go on.”


“She didn’t want me to see what she had been writing because she immediately slammed the notebook closed and hid it under her books when I walked up to her.  I introduced myself and got her name.”


“Which was?”


“Oh sorry. Katie, short for Kaitlin Moore.  We talked for a minute and then I wanted to see what she had written in the notebook about me.  So I pulled it out from under her stack of books.  She didn’t want me to read it, said it was personal, some project she was working on.  That only made me more curious. She tried to grab it but-” Jake paused as he realized what a jerk he had been to Katie. He felt a hot rush to his head.


“Go on.”


“I read the first entry out loud.  I felt kinda bad because it was personal.  Then I remembered that she had written about me so I flipped to the back of the notebook and sure enough she had done a character sketch on me.  Made me sound conceded.”


“Did that make you mad?”


“Not really, I tried to get her number but she wouldn’t bite.  She thought I was playing some game or joke or something.  She even suggested I get the number of the girl at the table across from mine.  Said that girl was prettier and would probably be thrilled to give me her number.”


“That girl turned out to be Melissa Connors.”


“Yes, sir.”


“Then what happened?”


“Katie took back her notebook loaded up her backpack and left. I decided to follow her.  Give it one more try.  So I told Brian and Calvin to bring home my backpack if I wasn’t back in 30 minutes.”


“About what time was this?”


“9:15”


“And?”


“Kaitlin was right the girl at the other table was pretty so I told Brian to get her name and number.  You know to cover all my bases.”


“So Brian what happened after Jake left.”


“I’ve done this for Jake before so it was no big deal.  I just went over to the table and said I was a friend of Jake Perry’s, most girls know who that is, and said he had to leave but wanted me to get her name and number for him.”


“Did she seem eager to give you the information?”


“She blushed from the top of her head to her toes so I guessed so.  I didn’t have to talk her into it.”


“How much longer did you stay?”


“Only a few more minutes, my girlfriend Barbara didn’t like the way that girl kept looking over at me and blushing.”


“What did you do with the information you got from Melissa?”


“I gave it to Calvin.  Calvin is Jake’s roommate so I figured he’d see him before me.”


“Yeah he handed me the paper as we were walking out to my car.” Calvin said. “Jake’s jeep was gone from the parking lot when we got there and so I took Brian and Barbara over to Brian’s apartment and then took Monica home.  Our study hour had been a bust. I gave the paper to Jake when he got home.”


“Wait let’s get these events in order.  Jake, start from the parking lot.”


“I didn’t know what door Kaitlin had gone out of so I just headed out to my jeep to see if I could circle the parking lot and somehow catch up with her.  Either walk her home or give her a ride.  I saw her down by the bike racks.”


“But you didn’t approach her at this time?”


“No, I got it into my head to just follow her, get her address and then look up her number later, maybe call her maybe not.  She’d said something snide about my little black book.  So as sort of silent revenge I was determined to get her number into my address book.  She only lives about a ten-minute bike ride from campus.  I parked across the street from her house.”


“Did she see you?”


“Not that I’m aware of.”


“Then what?”


“I got the address, sat there for a little while.”


“Did you see anyone while you were parked there?”


“I thought I saw someone in one of the neighboring yards, I can’t be sure. I left, got back to my apartment a little after 10pm and watched a movie with Calvin until midnight then went to bed.”


“What did you do with the address he gave you when you got home?”


“I wadded it up and just tossed it.”


“Why?”


“The girl lives in the dorms.”


“And?”


“That probably makes her a freshman. A little young for a college senior.”


“Did you go back to the library?”


“I only swung through the parking lot on my way home to check to see if Calvin’s car was there.”


“Anything anybody wants to add?”


“No, sir.”


“No”


“Not really.”


“Okay thanks, Miss Brooks will type up the transcript so that you three can sign it.  Just wait here I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Sergeant Yeargin and the stenographer left the room.


“Sorry, Coach it was just bad timing,” Brian said.


“Shut up Brian,” Jake snapped.


“Man you’ve been biting every bodies head off all morning.”


“I just keep thinking if I’d stayed at the library with you guys and picked up Melissa myself.  I’d probably at least have driven her back to the dorms and she wouldn’t be lying in that hospital bed.”


“If it wasn’t her it would have been some other girl, Jake,” the coach said.


“I guess you’re right.”


They sat in silence for a few minutes until Sergeant Yeargin came back in.


“Miss Moore has confirmed your statement.  She saw your jeep parked across the street from her house when she got home and saw it later out the window of her bedroom.  She also confirmed that it was gone by 10:15.”


“Katie’s here?”  Jake asked.


“We brought her in to see if she could corroborate your story.  We also think someone might be stalking either she or her sister.”


“You’re kidding,” Calvin blurted out.


“Actually the footprints we found behind the bush in the neighbors yard look like they were made by the same person but on several different occasions.”


“So that person I thought I saw could have been someone stalking Katie?” Jake asked.


“We think so. You may have prevented her from being attacked by following her home.”


Brian whistled through his teeth.  “Way to go man.” He slapped Jake on the back.


“Anyway you are free to go.” Sergeant Yeargin picked up the tape player he had left on the table.


“Was that on this whole time?” Coach Peters asked.


“Oops, my mistake,” Sergeant Yeargin said.


“Neat trick if you ask me,” murmured Calvin.





Katie sat at a desk in the main part of the station.  Jake noticed she had that deer caught in headlights expression on her face.


“I don’t understand why you need my notebook.”  He heard her say.


“We just wanted to get the information of the night of Melissa’s attack from it.” The policewoman sitting at the desk was putting the composition notebook into a manila envelope.


“Can’t you just copy those pages? Please some of the information in there is very personal to me.”


“Sergeant Yeargin said we needed the whole book.”


“I will get it back right?  Sometime, I will get it back?”


“I’m sure you will, don’t worry.”


A girl pushed passed Jake as he stood listening to the conversation.


Calvin pulled on his arm.  “Come on man.”


“Just a minute,” he said.


A brunette, a little taller and thinner than Katie but bearing a striking resemblance bore down on Katie.


“Katie are you all right?”


“Oh, Elizabeth.”  Katie stood and threw herself into her sister’s arms.


“The police came to class, like when Dad died,” she sobbed.


“Katie slow down.”


“I thought someone was hurt.”


“In the family?”


“Yes, but it was a girl in the library.”


“Okay”


“I saw her.”


“In the library?”


“She was attacked.”


“In the library?”


“No, no, no.”


“It’s okay Katie.”


“Someone maybe stalking us.”


“Come on, man.” Calvin pulled Jake out the door to the coach’s waiting car.