Entry #1 by Alex C.
Sasha had never considered that 24 hours could make the stench of vomit even worse. But the smell emitting from the off-yellow stain on the drywall had definitely intensified since her last visit yesterday afternoon. She had rushed a sample of the stuff over to Fred last time and hadn't had time to do anything else. Not that she had needed much time to confirm her theory. A brief look, even in the little light that now crept in from the street lights, told her that a fairly crazy party had been in the works. Looking more like the raucous masterpiece of a deranged fratboy than the leftovers of a sweet sixteen, the house was peppered with bottles, half smoked blunts, the occasional high heel, and pills in a small ziplock bag. A lace thong peeking out from under an overturned pizza box was a classy touch, thought Sasha. She could only guess at what had caused the wooden banister that followed the short set of stairs, separating the dining room from the living room, to dislocate so badly that one could make it rock back and forth with little effort.
In Sasha’s opinion, the only innocent items in the place were the balloons that rested gently on the ground; rubber-latex tumbleweeds in the seemingly abandoned two story house. The banner, written in different colors of glitter showered on glue, might have qualified if it didn't read, “I'm 16 Bitches! Let the Good Times Roll!” Sasha was certain the irony of that statement wouldn't be lost on anyone who had been with Rachel at the party.
Two days ago Rachel had been at the Rivera Drive Canal, a huge creek that meanders through the city which used to use it as a bustling thoroughfare that fueled the city's economy up through the Industrial Revolution. But on Monday, it washed up the body of Rachel Braun, a fifteen year old sophomore from Clover Ridge, ten miles from her neighborhood. Sasha had been sent by her editor to get the story for tomorrow's front page. The police seemed unusually quiet for the Rinker Valley PD. Rinker Valley, while not without its slums, was not a high crime city, and less of a metropolis than most cities with its population. The police often liked to chat with the press, an attitude ushered in by the current Commissioner when his tenure began 10 years ago in response to what he felt was a disturbing lack of visibility in the community. But not this time. Sasha was only able to ring the basic facts out of the detective at the scene.
“She drowned,” he had stated flatly.
“Any idea how it happened?” Sasha had asked.
“Hard to know for sure,” he responded with a non-committal shrug, “the current being as strong as it is probably carried her quite a ways from where she went in.”
“Well, what do think may have happened?” she asked, frustrated.
The detective paused a moment, seemingly almost annoyed. “Probably an accident, if you fall in the creek this time of year it can be real dangerous.” Sasha hadn't seen the need to press beyond that; what the detective was saying made sense. During the spring the region's ample rainfall typically raises the creek's water level to almost twenty feet from the bottom and the current becomes very fast and choppy. The canal is restricted access only during March and April, but thrill seekers from the local university sometimes kayak on it anyway. Drownings were rare but not unheard of.
It was during the routine follow up, when Sasha had gone to interview what family and friends she could about Rachel that Sasha had come to think of Rachel's death as more than just an accident.
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