Broken Wings 02 Midnight Flight (32 page)

16
Fly Away Home
.
The two men in suits whom we had seen come

in the helicopter joined Alex and Lieutenant Rowling when they returned to the barn barracks. Once again. Alex told
us
to sit on a cot. She sat on the one brought closer to us, and the three men stood around and stared down at us as if we were extraterrestrials or something that had just been found in the desert.

"We need your help to understand what exactly happened here," Alex began in a soft, friendly tone.
None of the men smiled. I had the feeling that if she weren't there, they would beat every answer out of us.
"All three of you were sent here as part of the juvenile recovery program, correct?" she asked, thumbing through some pages in a file she carried.
"Was that what they called it?" Teal asked, looking at Robin and me as if we had kept it a secret from her.
"I never heard that term. Teal,"
I
said.
"I thought it was part of the garbage recycle program," Robin muttered.
"Maybe we should conduct this interrogation someplace else." Lieutenant Rowling growled. "like the state's maximum security prison."
Alex held up her right hand without turning to him. She kept her eyes on us.
"Listen to me, girls. People are dead. This is an obvious case of felonious arson."
'Murder is a better word," Lieutenant Rowling corrected.
Alex closed and opened her eyes, again without looking up at him. "Before we can take you to more comfortable surroundings and see about your futures, we need to know as much as possible about what transpired here. How long have you girls been here?" she asked, flipping through those pages again.
We looked at each other, and then, after a moment, when no one replied, we all just laughed.
The men again looked ready to pounce
and
pound us.
"We're not being disrespectful, Alex," I said. "We've all last track of time.
It
seems like a very long time. but I imagine it's not."
"When you arrived here, these other girls, Mindy and Gia, were already here. however?"
"Yes." Robin said.
"Is Mindy dead?"
I
asked. I looked up quickly at Lieutenant Rowling, anticipating his saying again that they were the ones who asked the questions, not us. "We're worried about her. We don't know what to believe."
Alex nodded. "We understand she did attempt suicide. She's at a clinic. A mental clinic, and she is in treatment."
"She didn't die?" Teal asked, then looked at me.
"Why
did
she get to go to a clinic and not Gia?" I wondered aloud. "Maybe none
of
this
would
have happened then."
"Why
do
you say that? Was Gia angry about Mindy?" Alex asked.
"She told
us
she was dead. I don't think she was lying.
I
think she really believed it, so, yes, she was upset about her. When we returned from our picnic in the desert, we found her to be very different. She didn't talk to us very much. She slept a lot." I said.
"What did she actually do?" Teal asked.
Robin and I looked up in anticipation of hearing the gruesome details.
"Did she talk to you girls about doing anything?" Alex replied instead of answering directly.
"No," I said.
"All she did was work, eat, and write in her notebook." Robin offered, "Like us."
"Notebook?"
"Dr. Foreman made us write in notebooks." Teal said. "If we didn't do it, we lost privileges or were punished. After we had done so this time, we were supposed to get our mattresses, pillows, and blankets back." she added with indignation, as if she were locking a complaint with a hotel manager. "We handed them in and never heard a word."
"Did Gia hand in her notebook. too?" Alex asked.
"No. It's right there, under the pillow." I nodded at Gia's cot. Lieutenant Rowling, probably frustrated with just standing and listening and not applying some sort of electric torture, hinged at the cot and found the notebook. He opened it, then smirked with
disappointment and handed it to Alex. I don't know what he was expecting to find between the covers. Maybe a confession.
Alex read some of it quickly, nodded, and handed it to the shorter of the two well-dressed men. He began to read it with the other man looking over his shoulder.
Alex turned back to us. "Just give me a quick understanding of what went on here."
"Went on?" Teal asked, tilting her head as if she were talking to a complete idiot.
"You had classes you attended. You talked about good and bad behavior. You had therapy sessions with Dr. Foreman, who tried to help you understand why you were getting into more and more trouble. I imagine you had your chores every day, helped with the management of the ranch, the preparations for your meals. am I not correct?"
None of us replied. We all stared at her again,
Then Teal leaned forward, holding her head with that superior air as only she could and looked Alex in the face. "Your understandings are somewhat misdirected." she said in perfect, teacherlike tones.
Alex lost her smile, "Then help me understand correctly."
Teal looked at us. "Shall we help her. girls?"
"Look, Mrs.... Alex. whatever." Rabin said. ":`'all been given a lot of hogwash it seems. We didn't have any real classes. She threw books and
assignments at us and we were left an our own to do them, and if we failed, she gave us demerits, and if we got too many demerits, we lost privileges, and if we got even more demerits, we were sent to the Ice Room."
"Ice Room?"
The two men in suits closed Gia's notebook and turned to listen to us.
Neither Robin nor
I
was anxious to describe the Ice Room. In fact. Robin just wouldn't say much at all. I explained how I had revealed my fear of rats and how that had been used to torture me into obedience.
"Virtual reality," one of the men in suits said. He nodded at the other. "Pretty sophisticated equipment. Look into that as they sift through the ruins. See what you can find."
The man nodded and left the barracks. "Tell me about this desert trip," Alex asked.
Robin did describe that. When she reached the point when Teal got bitten. Teal started to cry silently. It was almost as if she didn't know she was crying. She sat there staring and the tears started to emerge from under her lids and trickle down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry, girls. I don't want to force you to relive painful experiences," Alex said. "but we're just trying to understand how all this came about."
"Did you help this Gia with the gasoline?" Lieutenant Rowling demanded, raising his voice with impatience and stepping closer to us,
"Gasoline?" Robin responded.
"No."
I
looked at Alex. "What did she do exactly? Please tell us already."
"This is ridiculous," Lieutenant Rowling complained. "This girl, Gia, went out and did all this and you three are sitting there and telling us you knew nothing about it. Is that it?"
"Y'all don't have to believe it, but that's true," Robin told him, her eyes just as fiery.
The stronger my friend was, the prouder
I
was of her, and the stronger I felt myself become.
"Gia was smarter than any of us." I said. "She helped us all get through the schoolwork. Whatever she came up with to do, she didn't need any of
us
to help her do it or think it up. What did she do?"
I
repeated with more firmness.
It looks like she poured gasoline strategically around the hacienda so that the fire and the flames would entrap the inhabitants. She poured it on the roof, around windows. everywhere. The lieutenant believes she might have spread this gasoline over a significant period of time and not have just come up with the idea and done it all at once. That's why he and same others are so suspicious about no one else noticing anything," Alex explained calmly.
"If she was carrying that much gasoline to that house, she would be marching back and forth a number of times from the barn where the tractor was housed." Lieutenant Rowling continued. "Someone would have to see her doing it and ask what she was doing. She would smell from gasoline, too."
"We all smelled from one thing or another around here." Teal said. "You ever clean out a pigpen?" She wiped away a tear.
"Maybe there was some gasoline closer to the house,"
I
suggested. "Besides being in the barn with the tractor."
Teal looked at me. "That big tin drum," she said.
"What drum?" Lieutenant Rowling asked.
"There was a big drum behind the house." I then described how we had spied on the buddies. Confessing about something so innocent compared with what had just happened here and what had been done to us over time didn't seem risky. I told how we had gotten the idea from Gia in the first place.
"So she knew the drum was there," Robin said,
"I
don't think there was anything in it then. I didn't smell any gasoline," Robin said. "and it fell over, remember? We would have seen gasoline spill out."
"It just wasn't in it then," I said. Robin shrugged,
"She might have been sneaking gasoline from time to time and spilling it into the drum until she thought she had enough.' Teal suggested.
"Iguess that makes sense. That way she wouldn't have to be running back and forth with pails all day and night to spill it all around the house." Robin added. "I guess she did have it all well planned out."
Her look of appreciation for Gia's ingenuity only made Lieutenant Rowling more enraged, "And you are sitting there and telling us you didn't help her and you didn't know anything about it?"
"See that?" Teal said, looking at me. "And you said he wouldn't be able to figure it out."
If the top of Lieutenant Rowling's head hadn't been securely attached to the rest of his skull, it would surely have blown off from the explosion of anger inside his brain.
"Girls. please." Alex said. "I'm trying to get this all over with quickly for you and get you out of here."
"I guess they did belong here," Lieutenant Rowling said. "I guess no matter what was done to them, it wasn't enough to change them."
"Oh, we're changed. sir." I said. "We're changed. We used to be nice people."
Robin laughed and Teal smiled widely.
"I'm sorry,"
I
said to Alex. "but we're tired and we have seen terrible things and terrible things have been done to us, whether we deserved them or not." I glared up at the policeman. "Won't you please tell us what happened to Gia? What happened to Dr. Foreman? Was she in the house?"
"Five people were killed. Figure it out Lieutenant Rowling snapped. "You're smart enough to add."
"Please, Lieutenant. You have enough information to go forward, don't you?" Alex asked, directing herself mostly at the man in the suit.
He nodded. "Okay. We'll talk to them after you've gathered the information you need and made what arrangements you need to make." he said softly. He nodded at Lieutenant Rowling, who turned reluctantly and followed him out of the barracks,
"Gia and Dr. Foreman are dead. girls
_;
" Alex said as soon as they were gone. "And so are the girls assisting Dr. Foreman."
"Gia got trapped in her own fire," I said. realizing.
"No. she went into the building after she began the fire."
"Why did she go into the building after she started the fire?" Teal asked,
"To spread it inside as well. probably," I said.
"No, not only for that. It looks like she went in to prevent Dr. Foreman from getting out."
"How can you tell that?"
I
asked. grimacing.
"They found a chain around Gia's waist. The chain was around Dr Foreman's waist, too, and there was a lock on it preventing her from just slipping out of it. She was caught in bed, sleeping apparently. There was
a
struggle of some sort, but dragging Gia out along with her was too difficult, and by then the fire must have been consuming the hallways, the rooms, and all the exits."
"You're saying Gia wanted to die with her? She sacrificed herself to be sure Dr Foreman couldn't escape?"
Alex nodded. "It certainly looks that way, I'm afraid. You girls are telling the truth? You knew nothing of this, nothing of her intentions? You didn't know she hated Dr Foreman that much, enough to be responsible for her death?"
"No, ma'am," I said.
"We all got so we hated Dr. Foreman," Teal told her, "but maybe Gia had reason to hate her more."
"No maybe about that." Robin said.
"I
guess Mindy was the breaking point."
"Gia wasn't right from the start, was she. Phoebe? She was living in her imagination, creating a girl named Posy, I guess for a while that was her escape," Teal said.
I
watched Alex Patterson's face as they spoke. then I leaned forward, "Was it all her imagination. ma'am?
I
mean, everything in that notebook?"
For
a
long moment.
I
didn't
think she would reply, but then she shook her head. "No. What she wrote in that notebook was true.
It's
all very sad." She stood
up.
"All of
it
was true? She was Dr. Foreman's adopted daughter?"
I
asked.
"Exactly," Alex said. "You're right," she told Teal. "This Posy she created was her way of dealing with all that, her escape
I
imagine."
"How desperate she must have finally become," Teal thought aloud.
Alex nodded. "I'm going to arrange for the three of you to be taken to a facility in Phoenix. You'll be questioned further there and I'll be on the phone with the various justice agencies you've all been involved with and that have had stipulations as to your dispositions. There is a lot to do, so we'll have to get started soon. I don't imagine you have anything much to gather up and take with you."
We shook our heads, our voices trapped inside
our
thoughts.
"I should have a car here within the hour. Don't
wander
too
far,"
she advised.
We watched her leave.
"Wander too
far?"
Robin muttered.
"We
could run
away,"
I
said, looking at Teal.
She started to laugh, her shoulders shaking, and then that laugh turned into
a
sob. We joined her like a chorus, all three of us crying for so many reasons it was impossible to center on one in particular.
Afterward, before the car arrived for us.
I
left the barracks
and
went to find Natani. He and his nephew had rounded up the horses and gotten them back into the corral. They were still nervous, the stench of the fires filling their nostrils and rekindling their recent traumatic horror, Wind Song looked
at
me
as
I approached the railing. He snorted and patted the ground, but he didn't walk over as he usually did. I didn't blame him for distrusting humans who were supposed to protect him.