Law and Order- complete

XXV

The rest of the day is spent with Harry going over basic things from his case with me. Apparently, Jason acted as Harry during his hazing and ended up getting caught. Harry was visibly adamant about telling me this much, so I decided not to push him as he told me it went south almost suddenly. He didn't go into specifics, only leaving a vague gap for my imagination before telling me they ended up in a gray Volkswagen where they were chased until Jason ran the car into a tree.

Harry had pretty much run off on foot until being found in an alley, leaving Jason since he'd been unconscious at the wheel.

I didn't know how to console him through the obviously hard words. Though he spoke them with a stolid face as he sifted through different printed papers (each with a face and names on them), I can tell it was hard.

He'd given me a Manila folder with a few files, telling me it's all I'd need. I felt like a super detective or something like this was the first job of my career. But I didn't want to downplay it seeing as it could determine if he went to prison or not.

That was another thing I wouldn't admit to him. The thought of him going to prison genuinely terrified me, especially since I know he didn't do it. I have no idea how I'll figure out how Jason got shot, though my bets are on Brian, the frat president. Harry said Brian and an anonymous member were the only two people in the car, the other members scrambling to rid of the other freshmen during the hazing.

There's no proof of that, though. When the police had gotten there, the jeep they'd driven had crashed into another car a couple of blocks back, and it was clean. In fact, there was no trace of the gun that was used to shoot him at all. I figured that out when I looked through the files after I got home.

Ellen and Miranda were there, Ellen outside on the back patio venting on the phone to grandma Valarie about what exactly was wrong with Miranda's bloodwork. While Miranda sulked upstairs in the bed, crying.

Today I learned what HGC was. A hormone found in pregnant people, it's usually what pregnancy tests detect in urine to determine if someone is pregnant or not.

I also learned that you can't get inseminated when HGC is already in your blood work.

It was news to me to find out that Miranda had been sleeping around with her manager Chris, the same guy she'd vented to me about so many times. The more I thought about it, the more it added up; all those late nights at the pediatrician's office, her complaining that she'd been gaining weight when we went to the farmers market. I didn't think she had it in her, and to be honest I found myself angry. Ellen and I have our moments but she doesn't deserve to be in the state she's in; damp, bloodshot eyes, red nose dripping mucus from all the crying, tangled hair.

I hadn't even spoken to Miranda since they got home a few hours ago, so I don't know the species. I overheard Ellen tell grandma Val that she's almost entering her second trimester, which would place her at about four months pregnant? I'm not sure.

I sit at the desk in my room, looking out of the window past the MacBook at Ellen pacing back and forth, the phone pressed to her ear as she waves her hands around dramatically. I can hear her voice as she now recalled the many things she's sacrificed for the marriage.

My attention is brought back to the papers on my desk as I look through them. There were about ten papers, along with a couple of emails he'd sent me. Almost like he was giving me homework. To be honest, I'm grateful for the distraction from the hellfire that is my family right now.

Brian, the president, was 24. And Jason, 23. Harry told me he couldn't recall who was there, seeing that everyone was in their masks, but it couldn't be more than twenty people. I click to open an email with the files attached, opening one that turns into a pdf file of a scanned police report. My skims skim over it, reading how Harry was arrested and why.