Chapter 2: The Witnesses

Myra started to get anxious why did it seem like her family had abandoned her when she needed them the most?

“Myra, we need to talk, you need to tell me everything and I mean everything don’t leave a single detail out” lawyer Benson warned.

“Everything that happened that night?” She asked

“Everything about Cody Whyte, including what happened that night” Lawyer Benson explained. Myra’s mind began to wander. You think you know someone, then one day you realize you don’t know them at all. After all the things Cody had done she couldn’t tell what was real and what was not anymore.

“I don’t know anything about Cody, I don’t know Cody” Myra mumbled.

“What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean you don’t know him?” Lawyer Benson was beginning to get frustrated.

“Everything Cody said about himself was a lie, everything, I don’t even know if Cody himself was a real human being… he could be just an entity” Lawyer Benson slammed on the brakes as the car screeched. Myra panicked and Lawyer Benson exhaled.

“Can we get home and talk about this?” Myra pleaded “this is not the kind of story you listen to on a drive”

**************

Meanwhile back at the Whyte’s villa they were also gathering all the information they could get in order to convict Myra. Whoever invented the stages of grief should’ve explained it better to them, because they were experiencing grief and anger at the same time. Mrs. Whyte especially she had lost her first and only son, just in the prime of his life she just couldn’t bring herself to process what was going on. She was going to throw whoever needed to go to jail right where they belong. Jail was not even enough for whoever killed Cody. As she was sobbing bitterly there was a soft knock on the door. She became angry at once.

“Who’s there!” She yelled.

“It’s me mom” came Cecily’s soft voice. Mrs. Whyte sighed and went to open the door. Cecily walked in anxiously. “Mom, everyone is worried about you, dad says you’ve locked yourself in here for a day” Cecily cried.

“I’m fine” she replied walking away from the door, she threw herself on the bed and sighed. Cecily rushes to go sit beside her.

“Mom, the detective is here to talk to us, do you want to come down and listen” Mrs. Whyte sat us with a start.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“You don’t look good, you need to dress up and come to dad’s study… we have a meeting”

In a few minutes she joined her family in the study, as soon as she walked in the conversation stopped and everyone looked in her direction. Detective Ruger looked up and his eyes met hers. She took a seat beside her husband who gently patted her knee. Cecily and Cara were happy to see her leave her room for the first time since Cody died, which was three days ago.

“Good morning everyone, sorry I’m late” she apologized.

“What matters is that you’re here” Mr. Whyte responded. Detective Ruger exhaled.

“So as I was saying, after thorough investigation we realized the cause of the fire wasn’t an electrical fault, it was a deliberate attempt to damage the property and end the life of the victim, but one interesting fact is that it wasn’t done by one person”

The detective stated.

“And how many people are in police custody?” Mr. Whyte asked.

“In relation to this fire, only Myra Jones has been arrested, she was the prime suspect… but Myra couldn’t have pulled this off alone… Let me put it this way… Myra couldn’t have pulled this off at all” Detective Ruger stated sparking the rage of Mrs. Whyte who banged her fist on the desk.

“What do you mean it wasn’t her? Do you know what that lady did? That night do you know how many damages she caused on our property?” Mrs. Whyte fumed.

“Mom, calm down” Cara pleaded.

“Don’t tell me to calm down! Your dad and I worked hard for all we have, we worked so hard to raise Cody too, then in two nights we lose Cody and we almost lose our property… insurance is going to cover for the damage but what about Cody? Who’s going to bring him back?” Mrs. Whyte bursts into tears again. At this point they all feared she was going to die of depression.

“Please calm down Mrs. Whyte, I’m not saying Myra is innocent, I’m saying Cody had more than one enemy” Detective Ruger explained.

“So don’t you think that pressing charges against Myra will reveal everyone behind this?” Mr. Whyte spoke up.

“We will definitely press charges against Myra, but what we need is solid evidence, which at the moment we don’t have” detective Ruger laid out.

Cara looked at the detective in shock “But Cody had a security cameras all over, we should get some evidence from there” Cara blurted out.

Detective Ruger nodded.

“But the information i got from the monitors show that, the cameras stopped recording after Cody arrived with Myra a day before the incident”

“How scheming of her… that girl is really something, what was her business with Cody anyway?” Mrs. Whyte yelled.

“It seems Cody had more enemies than we thought, but one step at a time we need to get Myra to talk” Detective Ruger answered.

“Ruger about Myra, who is she? What is her relationship with our son?” Mr. Whyte quizzed.

“You mean you don’t know?” Mr. Ruger asked in surprise.

“We don’t know her” Mr. Whyte answered.

“I only knew her as his new assistant, but their relationship seemed a bit off to me as time went on” Cara stated.

“Assistant? Myra worked in a jewelry store her dad owned, Cody was a customer they became friends from there” Cecily corrected.

“Wait, what? What’s all this?” Mrs. Whyte tried to grasp what was going on. “what’s going on here?”

Detective Ruger cleared his throat and in a grim voice answered “Myra is your son’s girlfriend, I’m surprised you all didn’t know about this”

“That’s not possible” Mrs. Whyte remarked they all nodded in agreement except for Cara who felt it was highly possible.

“They had been together for three years” Mr. Ruger spilled.

“And nobody knew of her?” Mr. Whyte asked.

“That was why the relationship began to get rocky at a point, she felt she didn’t know Cody well and Cody wasn’t ready to make them official, but that’s not all… I have a witness she can help us put the story together, so we can all put Myra where she belongs” Detective Ruger announced and the room went silent. The detective got up and a few minutes later returned with Tia, Cody’s most trusted servant. The family owned an estate and every member was entitled to have any mansion at their disposal. When Cody moved into one of the houses about some 18 years ago he hired Tia and she had become like a second mother to him. Tia had wept like she lost her own son and was having a splitting headache as a result. The middle aged woman walked in with a tear stained face. Mrs. Whyte stood up with a start.

“You also knew Myra?” She queried and Tia nodded.

“Of all the ladies Master Cody brought home she was the most consistent, it was almost as if he cared for her the most…” Tia responded.

Mrs. Whyte sat down fuming.

“So you were around on the day of the incident?” Mr. Whyte asked.

“Yes sir… master Cody came to spend the weekend with miss Jones, the very next day his baby mama came over with their son… an argument erupted it was so bad” Tia reported sounding visibly upset.

“Baby mama? Son? Cody had a son?” Mrs. Whyte exclaimed clearly bewildered by the amount of information she was getting after the death of her son.

“Yes… Miss Jones attacked master Cody, she broke the windows, she destroyed the tv, she punched the walls, master Cody was bruised, i was so scared I hid under my bed. She damaged some cars, she set some clothes up in flames, Mr. Whyte’s baby mama fled the scene, Miss Jones left too… but hours later there was fire in master Cody’s room smelt like the kind of fire from an electric fault…”

Tia bursts into tears “before I could save the master the he was already gone he had been electrocuted and then trapped in the building and burnt beyond recognition”

Mrs. Whyte started to breath heavily.

“Fortunately Mrs. Whyte we have not only miss Tia’s testimony we have two others… these people are very key in helping us trace the culprits” Detective Ruger stated. The room went dead silent.