Hard Play by Kurt Douglas Page B

lap and gripped a pen in her hand.
    She turned to Carrie and reiterated, “Now, tell me about the last time you saw Chad Campbell, Carrie.”
    If only Carrie was lying on the nearby loveseat, Amy would look just like a therapist taking notes on her patient’s various psychological issues. Instead, she was questioning a young girl about the last time she saw the man her parents deemed her rapist. The man that she was in love with. The man who assaulted her dad. The man that tore apart her family. The man who murdered her dad and left him in the Hollywood Hills to be found by any nobody who happened to pass him by.
    “It was just once. He was a lot bigger,” Carrie said. “I mean, since he went in. He was a lot bigger. It was just after he got released. I missed him so bad. I thought about him every day he was gone. I guess he had nothing to do but work out in there. Maybe that had something to do with it. He just wasn’t Chad anymore.”
    She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a second, then continued, “It wasn’t the same. He was different. Mean. Angry. Empty. Prison changed him. He acted like he didn’t even know me. Like he didn’t care. I didn’t know prison would do that to someone. You know? Make them forget?”
    She looked deeply into Amy’s eyes, looking for confirmation. “You know?” she pressed.
    Finally, Amy nodded.
    “Yes, it does change people,” she said. “Sometimes for the better.”
    “Not this time,” Carrie said.
    “Where did you meet with him?”
    “His girlfriend’s house, I think. Some stripper. He said he couldn’t have visitors where they had him living so I took the bus to her place. She was nice. She called me a cab when Chad threw his fit and left me there.”
    “Her name?” asked Amy.
    After a moment of contemplation, Carrie replied, “I think her name was Rose.”
    Amy scrawled the name on the page before her.
    “Do you remember where Rose lived?”
    Carrie nodded, sniffled, and recited the cross streets, saying, “I think it was 6209, or maybe 6229. Either way, it’s right there, a small townhome.”
    Amy’s pen moved across her clipboard. As she wrote, Mrs. Allen appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She rubbed the heavy sleeve of her robe across her mouth, wiping her upper lip clean. She held a new mug in her other hand. The steam rose up, returning a bit of the color that she’d been missing from her cheeks. She dabbed her nose with a tissue and watched her only daughter stare down into her lap as Amy questioned her.
    “And did Chad hurt you?”
    Staring into her sweat pants, Carrie breathed, “No.”
    “Thank you, Carrie,” Amy said. “You’ve been very helpful. Your dad would be proud.”
    “You know he’s...” Carrie paused and corrected, “He was a doctor.”
    She sniffled and wiped her nose, saying, “He saved people.”
    Amy nodded. “I know, dear. A cardiologist, right?”
    “That’s right,” Carrie confirmed. “A heart doctor. He helped a lot of people.”
    “I know he did,” Amy comforted. “I’m sure he did a lot of good.”
    The young girl tucked her knees to her chest, hiking her sweatpants to reveal the rainbow pattern stitched into the ankles of her socks. She rocked back and forth, gripping her knees, hugging herself, letting her feet dangle from the sofa. Her stare was empty and still. While the rest of her body bobbed back and forth, her eyes remained frozen on some distant point in the room that no one but her could see. After a moment of silence, she sniffled, rubbed her nose into her shoulder and fixed her eyes back on Amy.
    “Mrs. Van?” she whispered.
    “Yes, Carrie?”
    “Then why’d this happen?”
    The words burst from her lips. She couldn’t keep them in any longer. The girl didn’t know if she’d find her answer in the pretty detective, but that wasn’t the reason for the question—not anymore. It was a desire boiling inside her, a void that couldn’t be filled by the