Chapter 5
Joseph Braden closed the remaining door that
separated the living room from the rest of the house as Briscoe and Green each
took a seat on the sofa. Turning to face them, he tiredly rubbed the frown lines
etched into his forehead. Anguish and a succession of sleepless nights made it
appear to the detectives as though he had aged several years overnight. But
despite his haggard appearance, his eyes burned with intensity as he addressed
them bitterly.
“So now
that it’s too late to help her, you’re suddenly interested? The evening my wife
and I went to the police station to report Corinna missing, no one was
interested in helping or asking us questions then. We were told to wait and see
if she came home on her own. So tell me, why should I answer any of your
questions now that we know my daughter is dead?”
Briscoe leaned forward and spoke with quiet
earnestness. “I lost a daughter of my own, Mr. Braden. I know exactly what
you’re going through. But the psycho that did this to your little girl is still
out there. We can’t let him get away with what he did to her. If we don’t find
him, what’s to stop him from killing someone else’s daughter? For all we know
he may be lining up his next victim as we speak. You can help us make him pay
for what he did to Corinna and put him where he can never harm anyone again.
Any details you can provide, no matter how small they may seem to you, could be
the very thing to help us get this bastard off the streets.”
Braden sank into an upholstered armchair and
regarded them dispiritedly. “I’m not sure I even can help you. I have no idea
how this could’ve happened. Corinna was a careful, responsible girl. She helped
her brothers get ready for school every morning before leaving herself, and she
came home every afternoon to watch them until my wife got off from work.
Occasionally she would visit the arcade with a couple of her friends on the
weekends or spend the night at her best friend’s house.” He looked pleadingly
at the detectives. “How could she have come into contact with someone who could
do this monstrous thing?”
“Unfortunately, people who prey on kids hang
out where the kids do. Schools, arcades, skateparks — they’re all perfect spots
for these people to find their victims,” Green explained. “We understand that
Corinna cut school one day to go to the arcade. How long ago did that happen?”
“That was nothing, only a teenage prank. I
did the same thing when I was a kid,” Braden insisted, shaking his head. “About
six weeks ago, Corinna and her best friend, Kayla Guitierrez, spent the day
hanging out at the arcade. The next day at school they used forged notes saying
they had been sick. They would’ve gotten away with it, but Kayla’s mother found
out she hadn’t been in class a few days later while volunteering for a P.T.O.
project. It was the one and only time either of them did anything like that.”
“Please understand that we mean no disrespect
by these questions,” Green indicated, “but how can you be certain that was the
only time?”
“Because we checked with the school to make
sure that any days she had missed were ones we already knew about. And we
punished her. She understood that she was never to do anything like that
again.”
“The missing person’s report stated that
Corinna disappeared sometime Tuesday morning. Can you narrow down the time for
us?” Briscoe asked.
“We don’t know for sure, but it had to be
sometime fairly early that morning. I left for work around
“Your son didn’t call your wife when he
realized Corinna was gone?” Green asked.
“No. He got breakfast for himself and his
little brother, and they got on the school bus. He’s only eleven. You know how
kids are. They don’t always think.”
“So your daughter disappeared sometime
between the time you and your wife went to bed, and around
“I suppose so. I went to bed about
“What about suspicious people hanging around
the neighborhood or strange phone calls recently? Can you remember anything
like that?”
Shaking his head slowly, Braden answered,
“Nothing that I can recall. That’s what makes this so hard to understand.”
“Maybe your wife would remember something
else,” Briscoe suggested. “Can we speak with her?”
Braden shook his head again. “She’s not doing
very well. I had to call the doctor last night and he prescribed something to
calm her. I’m not going to disturb her. She can’t handle any questions right
now.”
“We can come back tomorrow,” Green offered.
“Maybe by then she’ll be able to talk with us.”
With a forlorn sigh, Braden said, “I don’t
think she’s ever going to be able to talk about it.”
“What about your sons?” Green asked. “Maybe
they know or saw something.”
Braden stood up abruptly and paced the length
of the room in frustration. “Look, my wife is under sedation and my sons have
slept with us in our bed for the past two nights because they’re afraid to be
alone. They all three wake up crying. I feel like my family is falling apart.
I’ve told you everything we know. There’s nothing else we can help you with.”
Briscoe exchanged a look with Green and got
to his feet. “We’re sorry, Mr. Braden. We know how difficult this is for you.
We don’t want to put you or your family through any more distress, but
sometimes it’s the smallest of details that helps us the most. Why don’t we
just leave things as they are for now and come back tomorrow? Maybe by then one
of you will have thought of something else.”
With a nod from Braden, the detectives
started for the front door.
Turning back, Briscoe said, “Oh, one more
thing. Can you tell us where Corinna’s friend, Kayla, lives? We’d like to ask
her a few questions, too.”
“She lives on the next block of this street,
house number 7506. I spoke with her mother this morning. She said Kayla is
taking it pretty hard. She and Corinna have known each other since second grade.
They’re best friends.” He paused upon realizing what he had said, then
corrected himself. “I mean, they were best…” Braden swallowed hard, letting the
sentence trail off.
Green gripped the other man’s shoulder
sympathetically. “We know what you mean, Mr. Braden. Try to get some rest.
We’ll stop by again sometime tomorrow.”
***Taking
a step forward, Green held his badge up to the front door. “Mrs. Guitierrez,
I’m Detective Green and this is my partner Detective Briscoe. We’d like to
speak with your daughter, Kayla, about her friend Corinna Braden.”
The woman stood blocking the door
protectively. “Kayla is really upset right now. She doesn’t know anything about
what happened, anyway.”
“We understand,” Green nodded. “We’d just
like to ask her some questions about the last time she saw Corinna. It could
really help us. May we come in?”
She hesitated for a second, then opened the
door wider and stood to the side. “All right.” Once they were inside, she led
the way to the kitchen table. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll go get Kayla.”
She returned moments later with her arm
around a girl with long black hair and dark apprehensive eyes.
“This is Detective Green, and that’s
Detective Briscoe, Honey,” her mother motioned as the men nodded a greeting.
When the girl sat down across from them, they
saw that her eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
“We know this is a hard time for you, Kayla,”
Green acknowledged gently, “but we’re hoping you can help us out. Is there
anything you can tell us about the day Corinna disappeared, or the day before
that? Did she say anything about what she was going to be doing on Tuesday?”
Glancing first to her right where her mother
was sitting beside her, the girl answered shyly, “The last time I talked with
her was Monday on the way home from school. She didn’t say anything about
Tuesday to me then, except that she would see me in class.”
Briscoe studied the girl carefully. “You
didn’t see or talk with her anytime after that?”
“No.”
“How was she on Monday? Did she seem nervous
or upset about anything?”
“We have mid-terms coming up next week and
she was a little stressed about her math grade, but that’s all. She seemed fine
to me.”
“Do you know if she had a boyfriend, or if
she had been hanging out with anyone different lately?” Green asked.
Glancing at her mother again, she replied,
“Corinna and I weren’t allowed to date yet. And we’ve pretty much had the same
circle of friends for the past two years. There hasn’t been anyone new.”
“Have you seen anyone out of the ordinary
around your school or in the neighborhood? Anyone who doesn’t belong, like
someone older?” he asked.
She grew thoughtful for a moment, then shook
her head. “I can’t think of anyone.”
“What about her home life? Was she having any
problems there?”
The girl shrugged. “She complained that her
parents were too strict, but that’s about it. I spent the night over there a
lot and her Mom and Dad were always nice. She even got along with her
brothers.”
“I’ve known the Bradens for years. They’re
hard-working people who really care about their kids,” her mother added.
“Corinna wasn’t running away from home, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“We didn’t think so,” Green agreed. “It’s
just one of those questions we routinely ask.”
With no useful information to work with,
Briscoe was growing impatient. “Do you have any ideas about where Corinna was
going or what she was going to do?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sorry. I wish I could help
you, but I don’t know anything.”
“Is there anyone else you can think of who
might know, someone else we could talk to?”
Kayla lowered her head and her voice grew
softer as tears filled her eyes. “Corinna was my best friend. If she didn’t
tell me what she was going to do, I don’t know who else she would’ve told.”
Mrs. Guitierrez put an arm around her
daughter’s shoulders. “She doesn’t have any idea what happened. There’s no use
asking her any more questions.”
The detectives nodded and stood. Pulling a business
card out of his pocket, Green handed it across the table. “If either of you can
think of anything else that might help, please give us a call.”
“We will,” the mother assured him as she led
the way to the front door.
Briscoe sighed in frustration as they walked
back to the car. “A fifteen year old girl doesn’t up and take off for no
reason. If it wasn’t because of trouble at home, a boyfriend, or a bad habit,
what’s left?”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you that teenagers
aren’t the most rational human beings,” Green noted. “Maybe it was just for
kicks.”
“I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t
tell her best friend if she was going to sneak out for a little fun.”
“You think Kayla was lying?”
“I don’t know,” Briscoe admitted. “She obviously
wasn’t with Corinna, but she may know something she’s not telling. What kid’s
going to rat out a friend, though, with a parent sitting right beside them?”
“Let’s go over to the school,” Green
suggested. “Maybe there’s a teacher or counselor that Corinna confided in, or
maybe we can talk with some of the other students who knew her. Somebody there
might know what she was up to.”
***Van
Buren looked up from her work and checked the clock as she saw the detectives
enter the squad room. They stopped at their desks to sort through messages
before continuing to her office.
“It’s nearly
“We’ve been pounding the pavement all day,”
Green offered, slumping into a chair. “We talked with Corinna’s father, best
friend, classmates, school counselor, and homeroom teacher.”
“No one knew where she was going or what she
was planning to do,” Briscoe added. “By all accounts, she was a good kid.
Everyone we talked to was shocked by what happened.”
“What about her home life?” Van Buren asked.
“Was everything there all right?”
“We think so,” Green answered. “Her parents
seem genuinely devastated. Her best friend said that she had spent the night at
the Bradens on many occasions and everything was fine. Corinna’s homeroom
teacher said she visited with the Bradens during conferences and they were
typical parents with a typical teenage daughter.”
“What about her cutting class?” Van Buren
reminded them.
“According to her father, it was only a
teenage prank,” Green responded. “He said they checked it out and made sure it
hadn’t happened before.”
“We stopped by the neighborhood arcade and
showed her picture around, but that was another dead end,” Briscoe continued. “Several
of the workers recognized her photo but no one had seen her around there for a
couple of weeks.”
“Her mother was under sedation today, so
we’re going to go back to the Bradens tomorrow morning to talk with her,” Green
explained.
Van Buren nodded. “Sometimes mothers have a
sixth sense about their kids. Let me know how it goes.”