Excerpt: I, Witness

(from crapdraft)

"See..." Mr. Wynn sighed, his forehead wrinkling. "She only started writing in them last year, and, honestly, we just don't know what to make of what she wrote."

Detective Roscoe nodded slowly and opened the book on the top of the stack they'd brought in. Leaning back in his chair, he flipped through the pages. He didn't read any of them; instead, he scanned the pages for anything that seemed out of place in a teenage girl's diary.

"What exactly is it that you're not sure of, Mr. Wynn?" Roscoe looked at the couple, trying to be gentle with his words. "I mean, I don't make a habit of reading teenage girls' diaries, but this all looks pretty normal to me."

"Normal?!" Mrs. Wynn reached across the desk, snatched the book from his hands, and started flipping pages furiously. Finding what she was looking for, she slammed the open book down on the desk and pointed to the pages. "Read that! Tell me that's normal!"

Roscoe took a deep breath and reminded himself the woman was under a lot of strain and not acting in her right mind at this particular moment. After a moment, he nodded and picked up the book to read.

June 24

Mrs. Blackwell is driving me crazy. Every day after mom and dad leave for work she comes over here and starts banging on the doors and windows and screaming like a crazy woman. Dad said he's had enough and to tell him if she does it again (duh. Like I wouldn't?? I've told him every day so far) and he'd call the police again and have her dealt with.

Dealt with. Sounds like something one of the gangsters in one of grandma's old movies would say. HAHAHA I can just see Dad making a call and then Mrs. Blackwell showing up dead in a few days. It would serve her right. The crazy bitch has been harassing us for days and scaring Grandma half to death. We haven't been able to go outside at all.

Today's Friday. It's nurse day. I don't know if Ms. Lancaster will be back today or not but, either way, it'll be interesting to see what Mrs. Blackwell does when the nurse shows up to check on Grandma. She wouldn't let the UPS guy deliver a package yesterday. Dad was really pissed. He said he needed that package for a presentation he's giving tomorrow and doesn't have time to play Mrs. Blackwell's games.

***

Dad is sooooo pissed. Mrs. Blackwell wouldn't let the UPS guy OR the newest temp nurse anywhere close to the front door this morning. She threw something at the UPS truck (I think it was a brick) and attacked the nurse! She hit the nurse!! I'm soooo glad I set up the video camera this morning.

Grandma got all freaked out and, after I called Dad, I spent most of the afternoon trying to calm her down. Dad called back just a little while ago and told me to give grandma one of her pills if she didn't settle down more and said to call him immediately if Mrs. Blackwell did anything else today. He said he called the police and that they would be meeting him here tonight to discuss what happened. I think I forgot to tell Dad that I set up the video camera by the front window after he and mom left this morning and that I got a video of almost everything Mrs. Blackwell did this morning. I KNOW I got it when she was throwing things at the UPS guy and when she attacked the nurse.

I should go check that.

***

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! I SO TOTALLY GOT EVERYTHING SHE DID ON VIDEO!! EVERYTHING!!

It was so awesome. I burned two copies to dvd. I'll give one to Dad tonight to give to the police and I'll keep a copy here in case they lose their copy or something. I didn't erase what's on the camera though. I wouldn't want them to say that I somehow doctored the video and Mrs. Blackwell really didn't do all that stuff. Stupid bitch.

Crap. Why are the police here now? Dad said they'd get here tonight after he got home.

***

The nurse and the UPS guy called the police!! They were questioning me like I was the one that was all bat shit crazy and throwing stuff at delivery trucks and attacking unsuspecting nurses. (Not that I'd attack suspecting nurses hehehehe I'm so funny) I kept telling them that it was the crazy woman next door but they kept saying it was at THIS address. DUUUUH. That's partly what makes her CRAZY! I tried telling them that I even had proof but they just weren't listening to me. After a while they told me they were going to call one of my parents because obviously I was a troublemaker that shouldn't be left alone and I told them I wasn't alone and that my grandma was here. They wanted me to wake her up and I told them I couldn't, that I had given her her medication a little while ago and that with any luck she'd be sleeping. They were getting mad so I told them they could call my Dad and he'd straighten everything out. They were telling me that was a good idea when the phone rang. I started to answer it but they told me to let it ring.

What you have to understand at this point is that Dad has that personal ring tone thing on the house phone so he can tell when it's me or mom or whoever calling and I could tell by the ring that it was either him or mom (since it wasn't me lol) and I told the police that. They told me to let it ring and to get Dad's phone number. I was so pissed by that time the phone stopped ringing that I kinda yelled at them "THAT WAS MY FATHER CALLING!! Now he's going to be pissed that I didn't answer the phone!" They were just starting to lecture me when the phone started ringing again. I picked up the handset, looked at the caller id, and handed it to one of the cops and said "That's my dad. YOU talk to him."

The cop didn't get to say much after he identified himself and told Dad that they were there because there were reports that I had been throwing things at the delivery truck and attacked the nurse. I could hear Dad yelling from where I was at. He was soooo sooo sooooooo pissed. From what I could make out, it sounded like the company that sends the nurses by to check on grandma called him to tell him that they wouldn't be sending any more nurses over. He told the cops he was on his way home and not to leave until he got here.

Ever hear of the straw that broke the camel's back? Well, I thought it was Mrs. Blackwell keeping Dad's package from being delivered. I was wrong. It was her making the nursing company refuse to do business with us anymore. My Dad was so pissed he was bossing the cops around.

I fidgeted while the cops sat around looking at each other but I remembered grandma's and mom's lessons in good hosting and offered them lemonade and water. I told them I'd offer them coffee but I didn't know how to make it cuz I didn't drink it yet. They both chuckled. Some guy showed up just as I brought them water and he said he didn't want any. He introduced himself as a detective but I don't remember his name.

Then Dad showed up.

Dad was so super pissed. I don't think I've ever seen him that mad before. His face was all red and kinda purple and there were veins sticking out on his forehead. You could really see that he was struggling not to yell at the cops as they all gathered in the living room to discuss what happened. I went to the kitchen and stayed out of the way until I heard Dad start yelling about proof. I remembered I had the dvd and took it in the living room. I really didn't want to be near Dad when he was so angry. I told him that I had proof and that I had tried to tell the two cops about it earlier but they weren't listening to me. After I explained everything AGAIN cuz nobody ever listens to me, they watched the dvd and asked how they knew it wasn't doctored. As if. I got the video camera for them and let them watch it from there. They asked if they could take the camera and Dad said the dvd was enough. I said there was a memory card in the camera but I didn't have a replacement and if they took it, I wouldn't be able to record anything if Mrs. Blackwell started doing anything else. The detective got the information about the card - what kind the camera needed and what size and all that - and sent one of the cops in uniform to go buy a replacement. He said he was sorry but he needed the techs to verify the data on the card. He said he'd give Dad a call when he heard something. He said they'd go next door and talk to Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell and tell her she needs to stop harassing us but he also said that Dad might want to consider getting a restraining order against Mrs. Blackwell.

Dad started to get frustrated again and asked how the hell that was supposed to be enforced when she lives right next door and the detective told him not to get upset, that it was just something he wanted Dad to think about so that if it comes to it later it's not a surprise.

Dad saw them out and after about ten minutes, the detective came back and said nobody was answering the door over there. Well, DUH! I mean, really?? Did you really think she was going to answer the door Mr. Detective Man? Geesh. Even I'm smarter than that. Of course she's not going to answer the door. She threw a brick at a delivery truck. She attacked a nurse. She's been harassing us for weeks. Did you really think she WOULD answer the door? Wow. Wanna buy a bridge? Maybe some beach front property in Arizona? I can make you a great deal!

Stupid ass.

After the guy left again, Dad got real cranky. He kept pacing around and looking out the windows and stuff. He called mom and left messages for her to let him know when she's on her way home so he can meet her outside. I think he's afraid that Mrs. Blackwell will attack her or something.

I was a little scared before, but with Dad acting like he is, I'm starting to get really scared.

Roscoe sighed and looked across his desk to the woman who had started pacing while he read. "Honestly, Mrs. Wynn, I don't know what you expect me to be seeing. It sounds like you had quite the problem with your next door neighbor, Mrs., uh..." He looked at the open book in his hands, searching for the name. "Blackwell, but --"

"Our neighbor's last name isn't Blackwell!" Roberta Wynn stopped pacing and dropped back into her chair. "It's Evans. Lonny and Sylvia Evans. On the other side of us is Scott and Jenna Robertson. We don't know anyone named Blackwell."

David Wynn half-shrugged. "She's right. Tamra wrote about us having to call the police on Sylvia, and that's true. We did, but it didn't happen the way Tammy wrote. And some of the things she wrote about her grandmother --"

"And us!"

David glanced at his wife and nodded. "-- and us just isn't true. Not in the way kids sometimes misunderstand things but just wrong." He paused and frowned deeply. "But there's enough truth in her words that it makes a person wonder about all the other things she wrote about. Like the drugs, the sex, the abuse, the murder. Does that make any sense, Detective?"

Detective Gerald Roscoe studied the couple sitting on the other side of his desk. They didn't seem like crackpots. They didn't even seem irrational, if you discounted Mrs. Wynn snatching the book from him. Looking thoughtfully again at the open journal in his hands, he nodded.

"Yeah, it does. And I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't at least look into this." Closing the book, Roscoe dropped it back onto the stack and focused on the couple again. "Is this everything she wrote?"

David Wynn nodded. "As far as we can tell, it is. We found them all over her room, some hidden, some in plain sight. After we read the first couple, we searched the whole house pretty thoroughly and didn't find anything else."