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Dear Diary:January 3rd

I’m back at school. I told you (many times) after I was released from the hospital I dropped out of school. They were really nice and understanding about it. I moved back with Mother Dear until last week. I’m back in the dorm with my old roommate, Cynthia. The school saved it for me.

Physically I am completely healed, in fact I have been for a while. Psychologically I am still quite shaky. I even had recurring dreams about strangling Mother Dear and others, only during the dreams, except for Mother Dear, I could not see their faces. I don’t know who they are.

I am going to my trans girls group meetings again. I invited Cynthia and she has agreed to go. She has no issues with being trans. I told her that it’s okay and she could make some friends. The girls were very nice and accepting. Most of them visited me in the hospital.

The two detectives assigned to my case are at an end. I’m not sure how interested they are anymore. I can’t really blame them. The case has gone cold. They did come up with three sets of DNA. I know there were four of them but I told the detectives I could not remember. They made sure that every new set of DNA that is acquired is to be checked against the guys who raped me. We’ll see.

I have switched psychiatrists. No more Dr. Frankenstein trying to get in my pants, the sick, twisted pervert. I am seeing a woman, Dr. Evelyn Booth. I have been going twice a week for several weeks now. I am much more comfortable with her. She also deals with rape victims (God I hate to use the word victim!)From seeing Dr. Booth I have decided I am more interested in psychology. I am going to switch my major to psychology.

Robbie went outside after her freshmen English class and was hit by a bitterly cold wind. She pulled up the hood of her coat and hurried down the building’s exterior stairs. Winter in Minnesota. With January just beginning, it looked to be a normal tough month, weatherwise. This year was not going to be an exception. By the weekend, the weather forecasts were predicting minus twenty with the wind chills approaching minus forty.

Robbie’s dorm was only one hundred yards away. Because of the negative temperature and wind, it seemed much worse. She made it in under twenty seconds, scurrying along with a twenty pound bag of books.

Once in her room, after warming up, she turned her phone on. Waiting for her was a message from Claudia Shepherd, Mother Dear’s assistant. It was an hour old and there was concern in her voice. Robbie redialed immediately.

“Hi Claudia, it’s Robbie. What’s…”

“Have you heard from Priscilla today?” Claudia cut her off and asked.

“No, why?”

“It’s after eleven and we haven’t heard a word from her,” Claudia replied.

“Is that unusual?” Robbie asked, thinking about Priscilla’s drinking. Since Robbie was attacked and moved home, Priscilla’s drinking had all but stopped. Her time spent with her feminist friends had curtailed to next to nothing, also.

“Even when she was, well, you know, out the night before, if she was going to be late, she would call. She was never this late.”

“Wow. Okay, um, I tell you what, I’ll run home and check on her. Would you be willing to meet me there, please?” Robbie asked.

Claudia got the unspoken message. Robbie did not want to be alone if Priscilla was dead.

“Yeah, I guess, sure. I can be there in thirty minutes. Do you have a key? I do too,” Claudia said.

“Of course, I’ll be there before you, but I’ll wait.”

Robbie and Claudia sat together quietly in the living room on a sofa. They were both quite distraught, holding hands to comfort each other. A police sergeant, the first one to arrive on the scene, approached them. His nametag read Olson and he was a patrol sergeant with the MPD.

“How are you doing?” he asked in a quiet, fatherly voice .

Neither Robbie nor Claudia wore streak marks on their cheeks from tears they did not leak. Claudia knew Priscilla too well to be shook about her. Claudia was also aware of Robbie’s relationship with her mother.

“Okay,” they both whispered.

* * *

Upon arriving home, Robbie stayed in her warm car until Claudia arrived. They went in through the front door together. They stood in the foyer yelling for Priscilla for a minute, when there was no response, they began the search. Priscilla was found with blue lips and a chalky, white face peacefully lying in bed. Quite dead. That was almost three hours ago.

There were at least a dozen police officers inside combing through the entire house. Robbie had walked through with a homicide detective, a very familiar one, Lucy Compton. Her partner, Melissa Myles, was also on hand. According to Lucy, they had volunteered when they heard who the victim was.

There were several, somewhat expensive items missing. Mostly jewelry and ceramic pieces.

The total, Robbie figured, was worth maybe twenty thousand if purchased legally. To a receiver of stolen property, a fence, Lucy said, maybe at most, three thousand. More likely closer to two thousand.

Of course, Priscilla had several very nice, expensive, pieces of jewelry. Easily valued at more than a hundred thousand dollars, kept quite safely in a safe deposit box at a very reputable bank.

In the middle of the mayhem was a tall, black, plainclothes man. Lucy had informed Robbie and Claudia that he was their boss. That was evident from the fact that virtually everyone, even the doctor from the medical examiner’s office, deferred to him. His name was Lt. Owen Jefferson.

While Robbie and Claudia sat chatting with patrol Sergeant Olson, Robbie noticed Melissa Myles talking to the lieutenant. When she finished, the two of them approached Robbie and Claudia .

“Robbie,” Melissa almost whispered to her, “They’re going to bring your mother down now. When they do, when they get her downstairs, we would like you to identify her, if you’re up to it.”

While Melissa talked to Robbie, Owen Jefferson stood behind her watching Robbie’s reaction. Not many children of homicide victims eagerly identified the body. Jefferson made a mental note of Robbie’s reaction.

“Yeah, sure,” Robbie replied almost casually. Then she asked, “Are you sure she was killed? Could it have been a heart attack or something like that?”

“The house has been burgled, that’s a certainty. You even identified missing items. Plus, there are definite markings on the side door where someone used a pry bar to punch open the door,” Melissa said.

A uniformed officer was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. When Robbie and Claudia stood up, Melissa signaled to the uniformed officer. He then called out to those upstairs to say that they were ready.

Two men from the M.E.’s office carried Priscilla, covered with a sheet, down on a collapsible gurney. At the bottom, they put the legs down then stood aside.

“You ready?” Melissa asked Robbie while Lucy and Jefferson stood by to watch her reaction.

Robbie shrugged her shoulders a bit and said, “I guess so, let’s do it.”

Melissa lifted the sheet just enough to uncover Priscilla’s face. Robbie looked at her without expression.

“Yes, that’s her. My mother, Priscilla Craig-Powell,” Robbie flatly said.

Melissa covered her face again while Robbie asked, “Did I do okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Melissa replied.

It was then that Claudia let loose a muffled sob while a couple of tears leaked out. Robbie turned and hugged her to comfort her.

All the while, both Owen Jefferson and Lucy silently observed .

While the M.E.’s car was leaving with Priscilla, Robbie asked permission to also leave.

“Yes, that’s enough for now. We’ll be in touch,” Lucy told both Robbie and Claudia.

Walking toward the driveway and their cars, Robbie whispered to Claudia, “You want to go celebrate?”

“It’s a little soon,” she answered trying not to smile.

“What do you think, Owen?” Lucy asked her boss.

Jefferson remained silent for a minute. The three of them were standing on the porch in the cold watching Robbie and Claudia drive away.

“Well?” Lucy asked.

“Something’s not right. I don’t think Ms. Robbie is going to miss her mother very much.”

“The place was burgled,” Melissa said.

Jefferson looked at his detective subordinate and asked, “Was it?”