Authors: Jack Parker
Jess looked genuinely panicked, almost like she was about to be executed.
"It makes perfect sense she was trying to protect herself by 'protecting' Nick, it was
her
knife that Scott's blood was on, and she's already lied about what happened to that knife!"
"I told you, I didn't
li
…"
"AND she doesn't even have an alibi. Well, Teneire? Don't
you
think that makes her look suspicious?!"
"Collin, you're beginning to sound like a robot or something instead of a regular kid," he remarked. "I think you need to calm down."
"But Jess…"
"Collin, look."
Teneire pointed over to Jess, who now looked much more calm and relaxed than she did a short while before. "Actually…" she said in a small voice.
Now curious as to what Jess was talking about, Collin looked intently as she dug her hand into one of her pockets and pulled out a batch of crumpled newspaper clippings.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Jess looked at her coworker furiously. Not only was she upset that she just got accused of being a murderer by him, but she also looked annoyed that she had to explain what she was doing. "You REALLY don't listen at all, do you?!"
"Wha?"
"What did I say to you on your first day?! Hmmmm?! What did I say?!"
Collin looked like he was going deep in thought for a few seconds before he hissed, "Waaaaiiit…"
"
Me and some of my friends play in a group…Sometimes even the media comes to watch us. We're that huge…When people put an article about us, I always cut it out of the paper and keep it..."
"You don't mean…" Collin stuttered.
"Ooooh, yes," Jess said with a surprising amount of malice rising in her voice. After digging through the clump of old paper clippings, she handed one to Collin to read.
Collin gingerly took the clipping and read it to himself. As he looked at it, a slight, "Oooooohhhhh crap," came from his mouth.
The newspaper clipping consisted of
a
black and white photo of Jess and (who were assumed to be) some of her friends or group members standing on a stage performing one of their songs. Right below the picture was some tiny black font that read talked about the band and specifically said that they were performing at Nessie's Night Club on July 27-the same day Scott got killed. To add on, the text listed everyone playing in the band, and one of the names was Jessica Moldavo, confirming it was her in the picture.
Oh, man…
Collin thought to himself.
"Ya happy now?" Jess said. "I was performing at Nessie's Night Club the night Scott died. And you know what? Nessie's Night Club is in Dhaosville, which is sixty miles away. You see?! I was
sixty miles away
when Scott died! Good enough of an alibi for you?!"
"Urrrgh…sorry," Collin weakly said.
"You
should
be! Not even on the job for a week and you're already pointing fingers at people and accusin' them of being killers. What the heck are they teaching in Catholic schools these days?"
If one more person makes a joke about me going to a Catholic school, I SWEAR…
Collin looked over at Teneire, who looked almost as annoyed as Jess was, but also slightly disappointed. "Well, Collin, at least we know who it
wasn't
now. But you got WAY too excited and WAY too out of hand. I don't think you're gonna be back here in the questioning room helping me again any time soon."
"W…wait!" Collin insisted.
"Too late for that. Ms. Maldavo, I apologize for this kid's behavior. I'm telling you, he wasn't ANYTHING like this when he worked for
me
last summer."
"It's fine," Jess said. "Just as long as you don't think it was me."
"Good. I think you're free to go now."
"Wait!" Collin yelled. At this point he wasn't even thinking and was just trying to do anything he believed would help him.
"It's too late for that," Teneire coldly shunned. "Jess, please leave, before Collin tries taking your head off."
"No! There's one more question I wanna ask!"
Jess groaned. "What. You want to prove that's not me in the picture or something?"
"Don't be stupid. I actually wanted to ask you about Nick."
"About Nick?"
"Yeah."
"Like what?"
"Well…you never said what
he
was doing the night Scott died."
"Collin, what are you talking about?" Teneire asked, trying to maintain his cool.
"Jess just proved that she was far, FAR away from Arbur Winslow when Scott died, so she couldn't have killed him. But if you remember what she said just now, she told us that she never got her knife back."
"Yes. We're aware of that," Teneire said.
"And who was the last person to have that knife before Scott got stabbed with it?"
"Uh…Nick?" Teneire asked.
"Exactly! So if
Nick
had the knife when Scott got killed, then that would make
him
the killer!"
"Collin, I…"
"I don't think it was Nick," Jess said lowly.
Just like that, all the life got sapped from him once again. "Why not?"
"First of all, Nick doesn't even have a motive. And second, he was su…"
"You know, Collin…Jess didn't have a motive, either. But you flung the whole thing on her, anyway."
"Yeah!" Jess yelled, completely dropping what she was originally going to say.
"Yeah, but…so?! It still LOOKS like it was him!" Collin desperately said. He wasn't hiding the fact at all anymore that he was on his last leg. "And if he had Scott's knife when the killing happened, then it HAS to be him!"
Teneire groaned. "Jess, please leave. Collin and I need to talk in private."
Jess scoffed. "See you at work tomorrow, newbie," she coldly told him as she walked out of the questioning room.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Teneire let out a loud and annoyed groan. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"Huh?"
"You have any idea about bad you just made
both
of us look?!"
"What?"
"You said you'd do something to help us out, and I
trusted
you! If I had known you'd be this stupid…"
"But I
did
help!"
"No you didn't!
How'd
you help?!"
"Well, I proved who the killer
wasn't
, right?"
"What?"
"Come on, you guys HAD to have thought it was her at first. But thanks to me, you now know she's innocent. And if she's innocent, then that means the guilty guy would
have
to be the only other one who could have had Jess's knife when Scott got killed…and that's Nick!"
Teneire looked a bit surprised from this quick deduction. "Ya know what? Maybe you're right. We'll just start doing the investigating ourselves from here."
"Uh…when you say, 'ourselves', do you mean…"
"I mean the police department, and
only
the police department."
"But…"
"Collin, maybe you'd be great at debating, but this is just a bit more serious. And I truly and honestly don't think you can hand…"
"But now you know it wasn't Jess! So you've got it just down to Nick! By taking Jess off the suspect list, we now know it had to have been Nick! Now all we gotta do is prove it. Please?...can I try proving it was Nick?"
Questioning Nick
"Come on!" Collin pleaded, now clasping his hands together. "You gotta let me help out again! Didn't you see how close I was?!"
Teneire scoffed. "
Close
? Collin, you just went to someone who was completely innocent and you aggressively called them a killer. I shouldn't have to explain this, but…that is
entirely
unacceptable."
"I know! It won't happen again! I promise!"
"Damn right it won't happen again, 'cause you're not gonna
help out
again."
"But now Nick's gonna be on the spot. And maybe I'll find something out from him! Come on, one more chance!"
"No! Now go back to scrubbing sinks or cleaning campsites like you should be."
Grrr…I gotta think up something FAST,
Collin thought to himself. He wracked his brain for something that he could use to help Teneire change his mind.
There's gotta be SOMETHING that'll make Teneire let me try questioning Nick…um…I got it!"
"Wait, sir," Collin said lowly.
"The answer's no."
"Just listen! Look, if I just proved Jess WASN'T the one who killed Scott, then that would mean
Nick
was, right? I mean, he was the only other person who had the knife around the time Scott got killed with it."
"Haven't you already?..."
"Yeah, but listen! That means I know something, but Nick doesn't
know
I know. So I could bring him in here for questioning, and if he said something and I fired back at him with something like that, I could catch him off guard."
"I have no idea what you just said."
Collin groaned, but he tried to retain his enthusiasm. He knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted if he just deflated and let Teneire win. That was the one thing Teneire taught him over the course of two summers: no one ever got anywhere by being passive.
"Look, Nick might say something because he doesn't think either of us know that he had the knife that killed Scott. But if we could launch that on'em and surprise him with it! Then he might crack and we'd learn something important!"
"I think you're just being a little too optimistic."
"Come on! Please?!"
Teneire sighed. "I said if you didn't find anything in Jess's story…"
"But I
did
! I found out Nick was the only other one who could've done it!"
With another sigh, Teneire looked at his former worker and said, "You're gonna get both of us in a lot of trouble. Fine. I'll let you help me question Nick, too."
The spark returned to Collin's eyes once more. "You mean it!?"
"I don't say stuff I don't mean," Teneire bluntly replied. "But if you can't pick out anything weird with Nick's…"