Broken People

Chapter 4

"So go to Chastity's house and ask her parents if they know anything," Damien says as we are on our way to New York.

"I mean I guess so," I say. "They didn't have any good insight on where to find Chastity last time the FBI investigated the case." I'm flipping through pictures of the scene at the church. The bombs must have been detonated away from Chastity because her body seemed to be rather intact compared to some of the other victims in the church. I flip to a photo of a tattoo on the arm of Chastity. It was just a twenty-one that looked fancily looped and etched carefully into her skin. The rest of the pictures were gruesome perspectives of separated limbs and blood spewed across pews.

The suburbs of New York weren't exactly a safe place to be, I remember as we roll into part of the hood where its inhabitants glared at us. We pull to the front of the apartment where Chastity lived when she disappeared and parked the car. Our black FBI van did not seem to impress the people in this community as they shared looks of disgust and disrespect. Wonderful.

"Well, they all look happy to see us," Damien said. I laugh and get out of the van and begin to approach the empty porch. I knock on the door and hear a few dogs begin to bark. A woman shushes them and creeks the door open to peer out at us.

"What do you want?" she asks abruptly.

"Hello Mrs. Williams," I said as gingerly as I could. "We're here to deliver some news about your daughter Chastity. Her tune changed and eyes started to well up as she opened the door wide and told us to come in. The house was small but it was homey. The dogs sniffed my hand and I scratched their tummies while their tails wagged. Damien avoided the dogs as much as he could because he's scared of just about everything.

"Don't worry they won't bite," she says, obviously directed towards Damien who is on his tiptoes as the dogs sniff his legs. "Please, please, come over here and tell me about Chastity, is she okay?"

My face stiffens as I tell her the news. "I'm so sorry Mrs. Williams, but your daughter was found dead at the site of a church bombing." There was no easy way to put that so I kind of just said it as bluntly as possible. Her face sank to her hands and she began to sob. Damien tried to comfort her but the bellowing woman was inconsolable.

A man comes running from downstairs to investigate his wife.

"What are you people doing here? Why don't you give this family a break," Mr. Williams says as he ushers us towards the door. Mrs. Williams picks her head up and tells Mr. Williams of the news she just learned. His face falls and they embrace each other in a weep. It looked painful. For them to be holding on to hope for so many weeks and then to find out it was all for not seemed unbearable to me. But now was not the time to feel bad. We have to connect Chastity to this church bombing and figure out why she would come out of the woodwork and blow up a church.

"Mr. and Mrs. Williams," Damien begins, "Your daughter, Chastity, was identified by many of the survivors as the bomber of the church." He let the words sink down and hit the Williams' hard before they could respond.

"No, no it can't be," Mr. Williams pleaded, "We knew she was troubled but she would never do something like this you have to believe me." Mrs. Williams bellowed out sob after sob and couldn't contain much of anything so she excused herself.

"What do you mean troubled, Sir?" I ask.

"She was depressed a lot of the time," Mr. Williams said regretfully. "She was depressed for a lot of her life. She had tried to kill herself once a couple of months before she disappeared but we had caught her just in time. She spent weeks in the hospital and weeks in therapy leading up to her disappearance."

"Before your daughter disappeared, Mr. Williams, did she have a tattoo on her forearm? When her body was found, she had this tattoo," Damien says as he holds out a picture. At this point Mrs. Williams comes back to the living room and blows her nose in quite a few tissues before she also glances at the picture.

"Oh hell no, Chastity knew better than to get a tattoo under my roof," Mrs. Williams began as she says through sobs, "Lord why? What happened to our daughter?" The water works continue and she leaves the room again.

"Did your daughter happen to have any friends that may have known about her whereabouts while she was missing?" I ask Mr. Williams.

"Oh lord, let me think," Mr. Williams replies. "The only one that comes to mind is her good friend Michelle Pfiefer. She was always close with Chastity especially through her suicide attempt and therapy. But we haven't seen her since Chastity's wake a few weeks ago." Damien thanks Mr. Williams for his and his wife's time and we head to the front door.

Damien steps over and between dogs being careful to avoid contact with any of them as we reach the front porch.

"Well," he begins, "Our next stop is this Michelle girl. I wonder if she knew where Chastity was that whole time." I text the name to headquarters so they can get us Michelle's file as we climb into the van.

We drive far enough out of the sketchiness of that neighborhood and find a diner. We destroy some hamburgers and milkshakes and theorize about Michelle and her role in Chastity's disappearance. I pay the bill and meet Damien back at the van. "Hey check your phone," Damien says.

I follow his advice and pull my phone out to see a message from headquarters.

"It's Michelle's files," I tell him excitedly but my face turns stone cold as I read the report.

"What is it?" Damien asks.

"Michelle was found dead a few days after Chastity's wake."