Young Writers Society

James was in the driver’s seat, and Robert was in the passenger’s seat. They were driving to the parents of the victim’s house. It wasn’t raining but it was cloudy in the skies. They drove through a nice neighborhood that wasn’t too far away from the woods where the body was found. Most of the houses only had one level and were painted pretty well in good conditions. They pulled into the driveway of the Phillipson’s house. It was a small wooden house, but it wasn’t tiny. It had two bedrooms with a kitchen and a living room. There was a basement and in total there were two bathrooms. Robert and James approached and knocked on their front door. One minute later a women had answered and opened the door. She was tall and had blond hair and green eyes. She wore a brown tank top with jeans and black socks. Her face looked red as in if she was sobbing before.

“How can I help you?” She asked in a cold voice.

“Hi mam, we are with the Minnesota State Police Department. I’m detective James Foster and this is detective Robert Jones.” James explained.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Robert said

He held his hand out for her to shake, but she shook her head instead of shaking his hand. Robert awkwardly put his hand back to his sides.

“We just like to ask a few questions that’s all.” James said.

Mandy Phillipson was the mother of Amelia Phillipson. They both had a pretty good relationship. But of course there were ups and downs. Occasionally they would have arguments. Her husband, Randall was currently at work. They got along as well but the fact that their daughter had just been murdered had made their marriage in the hands of grief.

“Come on in,” She replied.

Both Robert and James went into the house. There were framed pictures of Amelia and her parents. She had a bright smile in most of the pictures. Her parents also smiled but Amelia’s smile would just be more noticeable. There was one couch and two chairs in the living room with a table and a flat screen television attached to the wall. There was the table where they ate which was not too far away from the living room and there was a small kitchen to the right of the table.

“Would you like some water?” She asked.

“No thanks, I think were good.” James said.

You could hear the clock on the wall was ticking and the place smelled like wood like it was recently built.

“So what questions do you have?” Mandy asked intimately.

“Well, we would like to say we are very sorry for your loss.” Robert said.

She didn’t thank him but she nodded. It seems she didn’t like Robert. Not that she liked James in the first place.

“Where is your husband?” James asked.

Strange, he goes to work the day his daughter dies, James thought.

“We’re in financial need,” Mandy said as if she just read James’ mind.

“We understand,” Robert said.

Mandy and her husband got phone calls a lot from the press. Even though they wanted to be left alone to grieve on their own, they still wouldn’t stop calling.

“So how was your relationship with your daughter, Amelia?” James asked.

“It was good, well at least I thought it was good, my husband thinks that she somehow didn’t get along with me in a way.” Mandy replied.

“Like keeping things from you?” Robert asked.

“Something like that, I guess.” Mandy said.

“So did you know anyone that had problems with her, like in her school?” Robert asked.

“Well, she did had the boyfriend and they got into a lot of arguments.”

“Do you think he killed her?” James asked.

“I’m not sure, the arguments were pretty intense if you ask me.” Mandy said with concern.

She looked down and frowned, James and Robert had a quick glance at each other and then kept their focus on Mandy.

“So, did they break up before she was murdered or were they still alive?” Robert asked uncomfortably.

“No, they broke up about a month ago.”

“What’s this kid’s name?”

“Andrew Burns,”

James got out a small notepad and started to write down the name, he was already recording the conversation from a hidden recorder in his jacket but he wanted to take notes just in case anything happened to the recording.

“What can you tell me about, this Andrew?” Robert had asked.

“Well, he was dating Amelia for about three months. But of course like every high school relationship they broke up.” Mandy replied.

“So what did you mean by their arguments were intense?” James asked.

“Sometimes when I was cooking in the kitchen I could hear them yelling in Amelia’s room.”

“Do you know what they could have been arguing about?” Robert inquired.

“I’m not sure, Amelia never really talked to me or my husband about her relationship much.” Mandy spoken.

“Do you mind if we took a look in Amelia’s room?”

“No not at all,”

It made Mandy a little bit nervous about what they were going to find in her room. She wondered if Amelia was hiding anything in her room. She led the two detectives to Amelia’s room. The room was painted pink on all four sides of the wall. There were posters of Green Day and My Chemical Romance. Her bed was in the corner with a blue desk next to it. The desk had a mini bookshelf filled with novels, the surface of the desk was cluttered with papers that were supposedly homework. There was a red beanbag chair in the other corner with a book case next to it. Mandy walked away and left Robert and James alone.

“Alright, start searching.” James spoke.

“For what?” Robert countered.

“Anything, anything that can help us.”

Both of them starting looking through the books cases and under the bed. They were doing this to see if Amelia hid anything secretly in her room. Robert searched through the drawers of the desk. They were perfectly swiped clean. Then he started taking out books from her miniature bookcase and found a brown book that had ‘journal’ written across it.

“Hey, check this out.” Robert said.

“What is it?” James asked.

“Looks like a journal,”

Robert opened it and found several entree logs on the journal. It looked like Amelia had wrote in her journal daily. He opened up the first page and read it.

________________________

November 4th

Today was okay, I’d tried to convince my mother to have my curfew end later. It’s what I want in life, to have fun. I didn’t want to do stupid homework, I just don’t see how it’s going to benefit my future. But anyways today I went out with my boyfriend, Andrew. We saw a movie, not that it’s relevant what we saw. Okay, it was a chick flick, he agreed to see it with me. That’s why I love him. Everyone laughs at me when they see me with Andrew. But I call it true love, Andrew loves me and I love him, and that should stay that way.

____________________

This time, Robert was in the driver’s seat and James was in the passenger’s seat. They were driving from the Phillipson’s house to the station. James was reading over Amelia’s journal. At the time it seemed like Amelia’s journal was their best shot at finding who the killer was. They went back into the station and into James’ office.

“Want to get lunch?” Robert asked.

“Sure, why the hell not?”

_____________________

It was one o’ clock in the afternoon while James and Robert were at the local pizza restaurant eating a standard and old fashioned cheese pizza. It was typical of James to get a pizza like that because it was his style. However Robert wasn’t the same, he liked toppings like pepperoni or mushroom but didn’t like plain cheese on a pizza. But they went with plain cheese pizza anyways.

“So I have a question,” Robert said.

“Go on,” James replied.

“If we talk to this Andrew kid and turns out he didn’t kill her, what then?”

“We keep looking in the journal to see if it’s anyone else.”

“I feel like we’re relying a little too much on that journal.”

“For now it’s our best lead.”

He kept chewing on his piece of pizza while James started to wonder about something.

“What’s the date again?” James inquired

“November twenty sixth, why?” Robert responded.

“Nothing,” James said thinking about her journal.

_________________________

November 7th

My mom was driving the car, the air was a little bit cold, and I could feel the tiny hairs of my arms go up. We stopped at this stoplight and I look to my right and saw a stoplight. I saw a man who was tall but looked dirty. He was staring at me, I stared at him back but he started to smile. He started to raise his hand and waved at me slowly. I raised my hand to wave back at him, but the red light turned into a green light, and I couldn’t wave at him because I was gone.

___________________

James and Robert were both back at his office. Amelia’s journal was placed into an evidence bag. James was listening to the recording of the interview with Amelia’s mother, while Robert was trying to identify some new connections between the two cases. Suddenly Ben Kingsley entered the room without knocking.

“Hey James, the chief wants to see you in his office” Ben said.

“Sure okay, I’ll be up in five.” James replied.

“Actually he wants to see you now.”

James stopped listening to the recording and then looked up to Ben.

“Alright,” James said.

Ben chuckled arrogantly and then walked away from his office.

“What the hell was that about?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” James responded.