Brutal Honesty-part two

Nearly twenty-five years ago, Casie Schwartz was a ten year old fifth grader enrolled in Washington D.C.'s public school system. Casie had been popular and well-liked, one of the few popular girls who was popular for the right reasons. Amiable and gregarious, Casie was quick to encourage and compliment and slow to gossip or bully.

One day, Ms. Wallace, the fifth grade teacher, was too busy reading the newspaper to notice a student named Dimitri being cornered by three other boys. Michael's two friends, more like robots who agreed with everything he did and copied everything about him, stood behind him glaring in their own evil way. Nick and Brennan. Not like they had anything better to do. Michael himself had stayed back several times in several different grades and was now a seventeen-year-old in fifth grade. Dimitri was a chubby boy. He wore braces and glasses, and got straight A+ grades across the board. Shy, and eager to please, he was a big bullseye to the bullies.

"Hey, loser," Michael sneered. "You can run forever, freak, but you friggin can't hide." He balled his fingers into fists. Dimitri started to cry. "Crybaby!!!! Wah!! Wah!!! Aww, it needs its diaper changed." Without turning, he told Nick to go and get a diaper.

Casie was putting a pile of diapers on display for her science fair project-which material is most porous? Most absorbent? Nick swiped one diaper and Casie grabbed his wrist with fast reflexes that she honed with intensive karate studies. "Just where do you think you're taking that, Nicholas?"

"Let go of me!" the bully spat, his eyes angrily steaming.

Casie dragged him by the wrist to the back of the room, where Michael was eagerly pounding his fists into Dimitri's stomach. On the way, she swiped his car keys off the table "Looking for this?" she asked, dangling the keys in front of Michael's face. He stopped hitting Dimitri.

"Give that to me!" Michael shouted. He reached for the keys from the girl, but Casie was faster. She closed her fist around them and dropped Nick's wrist. Nick fell to the floor, trying to massage his sore wrist.

"I will return them," Casie said calmly, her face carved from granite. "if you never touch Dimitri again. If I ever see you near him, ever, you will be sorry."

Michael burst out laughing. "You've got some nerve girl, but that's exactly what you are. A girl. And no girl can threaten me and get away with it. Now give me my keys back and be a good little girl." He patted her on the head, which only infuriated her more. But Casie maintained a face of steel. Michael stepped back uneasily. Suddenly, Casie's other fist lashed out, catching him in the side of the face. Gasping in pain, he doubled over, his hands over his broken nose.

She dropped the keys on the floor with a violence that shocked even Nick and Brennan who quickly made way for Casie to step through. She took Dimitri's hand. "Come on," she said, and she didn't look back.

Later that day, she wrote a poem and hid it in her closet. 

Casie Schwartz finished telling Natalie the story, who stared at her with newfound respect.

"I never saw you as the type to beat up on bullies."

"It was a mistake. I shouldn't have hit him." Casie said, averting her eyes.

"So that's the story of the poem, is it?" Natalie asked. "Anyone else ever see it?"

"No one," Casie shook her head. "Not even my family. It was a private thing, you know."

"Then how in the world did it end up here, next to a murdered actress?"

"I don't know," Casie said, "I told you already."

"Well, why don't we go and take a look at the other scene, where Ephraim is lying dead? Maybe there's another one." Natalie winked humorlessly.

Dimitri Youngblood stopped the car at the next address. The name listed was that of Brianna Parks, billionaire a million times over. Guess that makes her a trillionaire, eh? Dimitri thought to himself wryly. A pity she has to die. Inside the small box there was another poem to be left at the crime scene. He squinted. The handwriting seemed familiar, vaguely so.

A whisper of smoke

Vapors escape

Listen to hear their dying screams

See the void

Catch them before they are gone

The essence of beauty

of life and death all in one

Imagine stories untold

Never heard nor read

Disappearing?

Not within enemy lines

Within the heart of your own

Dimitri affixed his signature to the bottom of the page. -There comes a time when silence is betrayal. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

He placed it in his pocket and rang the doorbell. A maid answered. He pulled out his gun wordlessly. She opened her mouth to scream, and it stayed that way in death. He shot her through the head and walked inside, admiring the new silencer he had been given. Dimitri walked up the stairs and wandered through the doorway of the master bedroom. Brianna was sleeping; next to her was a man who could have been from a fashion magazine. For a fleeting moment, Dimitri envied the man, but it passed. He aimed and fired. Red began to appear on the pure white sheets. The man stirred and woke.

"Wha-?" Dimitri shot him too for good measure. He placed the poem on the nightstand and quickly left back through the front door, closing and locking it behind him. In the car, he drove away into the night. He stopped at a closed convenience store and pulled out his laptop and a cell phone. He dialed 911 and then pressed play on the laptop.

"This is the emergency dispatcher. How may I help you?"

A pre-recorded message in an unfamiliar voice played back. "Brianna Parks has been murdered at her home."

"What? Who is this?" But Dimitri had already hung up. He then erased the sound file from the laptop so no one else could play it again. He discarded the cell phone inside the store and drove away.

<a href=http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977214642&nav=Namespace>Part Three</a>