The Lies We Tell

“Carl, any plans for today?” Monica peered over at him from her desk, gathering her peacoat from the office chair. Her long blond curls bounced around her shoulders as she pushed her arms through the sleeves and bent down to grab her purse.

“No, I have some cases that the boss requested I look into. You have a nice rest of the day, Monica. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early,” Carl waved a hand in greeting without looking up, his mind monopolized by the file opened on his desk.

The door banged shut at her exit leaving an uneasy stillness lingering in the empty office. Inching the chair forward, the loud squeak echoed throughout the small room, bouncing on the walls to resound in his ears. Another indistinct rumble reverberated within the room and Carl snapped his head up in alert, the quiet room underscoring every minute body movement, making it difficult to ascertain noises separate from his own. Concluding the ruckus was of his own making, he clicked the desk fan on to reduce the disturbing quietude and return to the legal case, one substantially more disquieting than the silence percolating the office.

A black and white image of the perpetrator arrested for the atrocious murder stared back up at him, his lips drawn down in despair with despondent eyes gazing through the camera. Shifting to the next page to analyze the data and evidence collected during the trial, the date May 1967 stamped in bright red clashed with the bicolor pages. Among the documents, a newspaper clipping with the headline The Choco Fiend Mass Murderer Apprehended After Several Deaths Destroy Small Town. An image of the killer with his head bent down being escorted in cuffs to the town jailhouse took up most of the front page.

Carl let the article fall back on the desk exhaling a breath, an effort to release the frustration boiling in his veins. He should be home, with his family, enjoying the familiar sounds of his children's laughter in the background. Instead, his boss laid more paperwork onto him, ensuring another late day of work. Thankfully, he was on the last case file.

It was an old case whispered among the locals. At every murder scene a slice of chocolate cake was found with one bite. The victim was often placed in a sitting position, stiff as a rock with no signs of a struggle, suggesting the murderer was no stranger. Rumors and gossip flew under the radar that the actual killer was still loose and that it had been a witch orchestrating the murders as a sacrifice to gain unnatural abilities. A bunch of hogwash, to say the least. The murderer, Barry Brown, had remained silent during the investigation, only stating he wasn’t the responsible party of the deaths and had an alibi to prove his innocence.

A loud knock disturbed his thoughts and set off an uneasy foreboding that began to stir in the pit of his stomach. Staring at the door, a vague shadow could be seen reflected on the door’s frosted glass. From the hazy details of the reflection, Carl determined the late visitor was a woman, petite in stature and possibly in her late years. Relief flooding over him at the observation, he heaved himself up from his seat and walked over to the door to address the stranger.

“Good evening, ma’am. What can I help you with?” Carl glanced at the elderly lady standing before him, a cane held in her right hand and a large black leather purse hanging over her left shoulder. Her grey hair was tied up in a bun, a feat that was probably difficult for her to do alone. She wore a long printed dress that reached past her knees with black slip on dress shoes.

“Hello, young man. May I come in?” She looked up at him, a pleasant smile stretching the bright red lipstick smeared on her lips.

“Unless you have certain business with me, I’m afraid you will have to come back tomorrow, ma’am. Office hours are over, but we will be open at 8 in the morning. If you want, I can leave a message for whomever you are here to meet.”

“Oh, I see. I apologize for interrupting your work. It’s just I really want to speak to the person responsible for the re-investigation of my father. I feel it is imperative to provide my testimony in the retrial considering it was never taken in the initial one. I would love to leave a message, but I do not know the name of the one who has taken his case.”

“What’s your father’s name? Perhaps I know the one who has been assigned his case file.”

“Barry Brown.”

Momentarily startled and dismayed with the utterance of the name, Carl froze on spot, gaping at the older woman peering up at him with a renewed hope glinting in her eyes. She was the daughter of a murderer, a renown killer who had tainted the reputation of a small town.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Shifting her purse back, she extended her left hand, “I’m glad to meet you. I understand your hesitance, but this is the reason why I’m here. May I come in?”

Still stunned with her sudden appearance and forgetting the outstretched hand, he opened the door more, providing enough room for her entrance. The clacking noise of her cane bounced in the small office, ending when she took a seat opposite of his desk. He shuffled over to his chair and sat down, the warmth of the seat having left in a small amount of time. The lady sitting across from him peeked over his desk, her eyes focusing on the file of her father opened out before them. She glanced up, studying Carl’s demeanor and from her quick observation appeared to have gathered the information she needed.

Breaking the awkward silence and ignoring the obvious inspection, Carl closed the case file, and reached into his desk to obtain a digital voice recorder. “Ms. Brown, may I call you Ms. Brown? Is it alright if I record your testimony? It’ll help in properly documenting the accurate words provided during the short interview.”

“Please, call me Betty. And I haven’t used the name Brown since after the incident. As for the recording, I have waited for this moment all my life.”

Carl looked over at her, curious by her statement. Turning on the device, he placed it between them on the desk. “Alright. It’s recording, Betty. Why have you come here today? You told me at the door you came here for a reason.”

“I know what people say about my father and about myself. I saw the hesitance in your face when you realized who my father was. I’m here today to reveal the truth, as much as I know it to be.”

“And what is that truth, Betty?”

“My father was innocent. The killer was never caught, and most likely, lives among you still secretly laughing at the town’s ignorance in believing they captured the Choco Fiend.” Carl continued his questioning, trying his best to remain unbiased, but finding her words to be hard to swallow.

“Why do you believe this to be the case?”

“Because the missing alibi that was thrown out of my father’s trial was me,” she spoke crisply, every word iterated with emphasis, a hint of anger surfacing to the forefront. Carl shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under her glare, but it wasn’t directed at him. He imagined she was seeing the events roll out in her mind’s eye.

“Why did they throw out your testimony?” Carl pushed her to resume her story, but having an inkling to the reason why.

“I was a child and his daughter. They said I was biased and that I would say whatever my father told me to say,” she regained focus and pointedly stared at Carl, “but you already knew the reasoning behind that.”

Carl confirmed her statement by slightly nodding his head. “Most cases dealing with children as eye-witnesses have been deemed to be faulty at best.”

“Yes, well, in my father’s case, I was the only alibi he could rely on and they knew that,” Betty hissed through her teeth, hatred swirling in her eyes.

“Were there other alibi’s?” Carl was confused. He’d read the file earlier and the legal documents listed only one alibi, that one being thrown out due to its unreliability of the alibi.

“Carl, you have to remember the era in which this occurred,” Betty waved her arms around, amazed at Carl’s oversight, “a small town in the 60's had many prejudices shrouded under a facade of make-belief apple pie American life.”

Nodding at her statement, he asked the next question, “I understand. So it is in your belief that your father was a victim of that time and, therefore, the trial was stacked against his favor.”

“Oh, I know so. The day the murder took place, my father was with me the entire time. We visited a farm, not far from where we lived, that allowed visitors to pet and ride their horses. I remember that day perfectly, because it started out as the greatest day in my life and ended as the worst day ever,” she closed her eyes, the hand holding the cane tightening around its girth. Opening her eyes moments later, she looked out the window at the darkening sky with the bright moon announcing night’s arrival. “There were plenty of eye witnesses who saw my father with me that day, but no one ever stepped forward…”

Carl remained quiet, her suggestion that the whole town was responsible for falsely accusing an innocent person. He was at a loss for words, the scenario she’d described leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

Betty glimpsed the inner turmoil embroiling his thoughts and smiled with remorse, as if she’d just revealed to Carl that the Easter bunny and Santa were not real. “People determine what they see as truth. They will be blind to the hints and signs that would suggest otherwise. And when their truth is under fire, they will show an inability in admitting their wrongs, and desperately cling to their truth. Unable to change in the face of proof laid out before them.” She scoot closer to the desk, placing her hand over Carl’s hand reclined on the desk, over the file.

“Everyone has biases, even myself. The difference is I do not have the power to subjugate others according to those beliefs. My father became a scapegoat to ensure the town’s people felt safe in their homes, even if it was a charade.”

Carl's illusions of the small town he lived in disintegrated with her final assertion, replaced with the reality that the people embraced lies to create a fantasy. He’d been one of those who’d participated in the lie, ignoring the signs blatantly in his face, choosing to overlook the wrongs exhibited by others. Not long before her visit, he had been about to declare her father guilty on the basis of those lies. With that thought, another horrific one sprung forth. If her testimony was true, and he had no doubt it was, then the true killer had gone free for several decades, free to kill more innocent lives that would have been deterred if the town had sought the truth, rather than a lie.

Betty smiled, watching Carl as he came to the same conclusion she had made previously. “Good intentions set forth with insufficient actions result in the same manner as those with ill intentions. There is no difference. The people still end up suffering in the end, but only those who’ve been lied to suffer two-fold. With this fabricated lie and my father locked up for a murder he didn’t do, all in the name to allow the town to feel safe, they have allowed the murderer to continue…”