Admire Me (Rough Edges 2)

“Whoever did this - it was personal. It takes rage to continuously stab two people that many times.”

I didn’t want to think about that, because if so Harper might know the person responsible for her attack and not even realize it.

“Here are some footprints they found tracked through the blood, but the report shows blood only matched the victims’ and it appears they found the murder weapon.”

I take the report out of his hand, going over it myself too. A knife from their own kitchen found on the ground covered in blood. He didn’t even think to take it with him? Yet, no prints were found on the weapon. How is this guy so damn smart at covering his tracks?

We banter over the details of the crime scene, and spout off reasons why the person would come after them. Gambling debt? Scorned Lover? Money motive? Neither of us have ever investigated a murder before, and come up with nothing that isn’t already theorized in the report and from the detective that worked the case.

There are never ending notes from the detective in here, he was meticulous. In the box are a series of recordings, these are interviews with witnesses and neighbors on the night of the murder. I pull the one with Harper’s name written in bold black ink and pop into the tape player Scott brought.

At first it is staticky, and then I hear a man ask her to state her name for the record.

“Harper Davis.”

Her voice is shaky, and there is a sense of fear in her voice.

“Ms. Davis, can you tell me what made you visit your parents’ this evening?”

For a moment, it was silent, and Scott and I just looked at each other.

“I was supposed to have dinner with them.”

Hearing her voice, shaky and terrified, kills me.

“And I’m told you are the one who found them and called 911, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

The interview is basic questions I assume a detective would ask, but knowing Harper it made it feel like they were treating her as a suspect. I get it, she’s first to the scene, calls 911, and no one saw anyone else go in or out. Of course, it makes her look suspicious. About halfway through the interview, a woman comes in and introduces herself as Detective Westfield, and asks if Harper knows of anyone that would want to hurt her or her parents. The answer makes Scott and I stare at each other.

“A couple of months ago - a guy was stalking me and my parents told him to leave me alone. He would watch me from outside my window at night.”

They ask Harper for his name, Keith Standridge.

I press pause. “So before we move on, let’s figure out what they found out about that guy.”

It takes about twenty minutes of going through all the damn papers before we found anything about him in the file. The only thing that is really said is his alibi checked out for the night of the murders, and so he was not named a suspect.

Harper never mentioned any of this to me, but it could just be because of her memory being wiped. I have to stop thinking she’s hiding something from me, and letting this come between us. It’s not like I can come out and ask her about it now, or she will want to know how I found out in the first place. All that will cause is more pain and confusion for her.

“I find it odd there is no picture of this guy. Every other person they interviewed has a corresponding picture in here, except for this Keith guy. Although, it does give us his address at the time of the murders, which isn’t helpful.”

Scott presses play to listen to the rest of her questioning but I try to block it out and go over the report of the crime scene again, looking for anything we might have missed. The house showed signs of forced entry at the front door, almost like someone tried to pick the lock, and then once they gave up, they busted out a bedroom window and climbed in through there.

So, we know how the perp got inside, but now we need to find a motive. Even if this Keith guy was stalking Harper, why would he kill her parents’?

We spend most of the morning and afternoon combing through each page and interview trying to come up with something to investigate further that could help us solve who is behind Harper’s attack, but nothing. The only person that stands out is her stalker, even though he had an alibi for their murder, he could still be coming after her now.

Scott leaves to talk to the detective about it, and Damon is sitting at the poker table, trying not to make it obvious that he’s pissed at me.

“You can’t blame me. I’m doing everything I can to find who did this to her,” I say, pulling a chair out from the table.

“But you’re going about it the wrong way, behind her back.”

“Am I supposed to tell her I’m looking into her parents’ murder, and then let her join in because she will be curious on what happened, and then watch her go through all that pain and misery again? No fucking thank you.”

Damon throws his hands up in the air, and gets up from the table. “We are the good guys, remember. Once you start hiding things, it only goes downhill from there. Think about what you’re doing. How can anyone trust you if you are keeping secrets from them? What if the roles were reversed?”