CONTEST: “The Keyword of the Week”/cranberries, school

The phone rings, Molly's mother answers the call, it was one of her daughter's friends. So she goes to find her in her room to tell her about it. Then Molly answers...

-Hello!" She started the conversation.

-Molly, are you alone in your room? It was one of her friends, her name is Heidi.

-Yes, I'm alone! What's wrong?" Molly asked.

-I don't know how to talk to you about this! I still can't believe it," she could hear the fear in Heidi's voice.

-Tell me now, what happened? You're making me nervous, and I don't want my mother to come in again and find me talking like this," Molly continued.

Heidi told her that Victor, a teenager who had been studying with the two friends until days before school ended for the summer vacation, had died of asphyxiation. He had died of asphyxia, but the worst thing was not that...

Fuente Molly

-But isn't he big enough to die from suffocation, Heidi? Was he provoked? How did it happen? Molly couldn't help but ask, she couldn't quite understand.

-You're right, and that's what I'm most afraid of, Molly," Heidi answered her friend as she sobbed.

An awkward silence fell over the conversation, and so unexpectedly the call ended. Molly did not know any more details about Victor's death, nor could she return her friend's call, something was not right, and she felt it her duty to look into it.

She continued to organize her class schedule, she decided to keep the phone by her bed, in case Heidi called her back.

By the time she was finished with her schedule, it was just after 10:00pm. She put away everything she had used, lay down on her bed, and then fell asleep.

Around midnight, the ringing of the phone woke her up with a start, she felt like her heart would jump out of her chest.

Fuente Heidi

She answered the call...

-Heidi? Is that you? Molly wanted to know more details as soon as possible.

-Yes, Molly! I'm sorry, but I heard my parents, they were talking about Victor, and it's not favorable at all.

-Did he suffocate just like that or was it provoked, Heidi? Molly didn't want to waste time, and asked directly.

-It was provoked! The police shouldn't take long to come to your house in a few days, that's what I heard, and they didn't do it right after what happened with Victor, because they needed to investigate all the evidence that could possibly be in your house.

-Here? My house? But what do we have to do with all this, Heidi? What are you hiding from me? This is very delicate," was all Molly could think of to answer her friend.

-There's a cranberry tree in your house, Molly. He was smothered with cranberries, he was handcuffed and lying in his bed, Molly," Heidi was upset by what had happened and all she knew about it.

It was a murder, Molly was convinced that there were several people involved, her doubt remained only in knowing who managed to go to the backyard of her house, to take some cranberries? Mr. Matheus, the gardener was a kind man and everyone knew his family.

So he would definitely not be a suspect for Molly, and on the other hand, in her house it had been months since they had received a visit from her uncle, and that had been 3 months before the end of school.

-Heidi, it is true, in the garden of my house there is a cranberry tree, but no one has gone there and I don't know of anyone who has taken it," Molly said to her friend to make her understand that it was impossible that in her house there was any evidence.

-Molly, I never told the officers that there is a tree in your house, it was my parents, I assumed they would be nervous," Heidi tried to avoid an argument with her friend.

Molly decided to end the call, she had thought about waking up early and going to visit Heidi at her house, it was important to talk about the possible murder of Victor.

The hours passed, when at 7.00am the sound of the clock woke Molly up, she got out of bed and did her daily routine on in the morning.

Heidi was having breakfast with her mother, while her father was working outside the house.

-Who were you talking to last night? Remember that phone calls are forbidden after 9:00 p.m." Heidi's mother asked, seeming intrigued.

-Mom, I spoke to one of my classmates. Before we went on vacation from school, the teacher assigned us a project, you know I am very responsible with my homework and I wouldn't give up all that work, a week before classes start again.

Her mother nodded her head, caressed her daughter's face, smiled at her and got up from the table.

A few minutes later, the sound of the doorbell made Heidi not finish her breakfast, to find out who was at her front door.

-Who is at the door? Your grandparents are coming to visit, let me know if it's them so I can go downstairs right away," Heidi's mother had asked a question, not knowing that her daughter would act differently.

She opened the door, Molly had arrived. Then Heidi spoke loudly to her mother to inform her that someone had rung the doorbell by mistake.

The two friends rode off together, got on their bikes and stopped far away from Heidi's house. They didn't want to be overheard by anyone else.

-Let's talk Heidi, I'm worried. I can't even take in what they did to Victor. Who broke the news? How did you know? Molly took the lead in the conversation.

-My parents gave me the terrible news, they thought I should know. His mother was the one who found him in his room, handcuffed, lifeless. The medical examiners determined that the cause was asphyxiation, cranberries, manhandled, brutally tortured. Can you believe that 15 cranberries were extracted from his throat? Who would do so much evil to Victor? Heidi cried as she confessed to Molly more details of the murder.

Molly and Heidi talked about what had happened for 20 minutes, they were running late and that would raise suspicions, not letting their mothers know that they were going far from home.

By the time they returned, on the road, the patrol cars of the officers were driving at top speed, the siren with that characteristic sound. They were afraid, and looked into each other's eyes.

-The officers are at your house," Molly pointed toward her friend's house as two officers grabbed her friend's mother by both hands.

Heidi, quickly got off her bike, leaving it lying in the middle of the road and ran to her mother. She was upset, she didn't understand why her mother was being arrested by the police.

-Is that your daughter, Mrs. Phillips? We need you to calm down, this is a procedure we have to follow and don't worry, your husband will not be unharmed," one of the officers was speaking to Heidi's mother.

FuenteVictor

What the teenager was hearing was just as painful as Victor's murder, to think that her parents had been involved in a brutal act was to hate them forever.

-Forgive me, Heidi! We didn't mean to do it," Heidi's mother spoke to her, but still the situation did not seem clarified.

The officers took Heidi's mother prisoner, at that moment Heidi's grandparents arrived, they knew what was about to happen, and for that reason, they went to visit her.

The grandparents invited the two friends into the house. Heidi wouldn't stop crying, asking herself questions, and Molly didn't know what to do to calm her down.

That day had become one of the longest, it seemed like it would never end. Heidi had stayed with Molly, who had asked her parents for permission to sleep at her friend's house.

And after that day, the officers had visited Molly's house, a simple interrogation of her parents, to come to the conclusion that neither her parents nor the gardener were involved in Victor's murder.

Having all the evidence of the facts in hand, the officers issued a more comprehensive report. Heidi's parents were the masterminds behind Victor's death.

The young man had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Discovering that Heidi's parents were con artists, he threatened to expose them to the police, as well as Heidi's father's job. The man was a trusted employee, exemplary to his boss, so knowing that he was a fraudster and that he even made transactions within the company and from there some of the money went into his bank account, would leave him on bad terms and with a letter of termination.

Victor was a very intelligent young man, he had skills in technology and systems, so he knew and kept important information.

Cranberries? That was what Heidi's father came up with, to use and thus divert attention on them. Victor had been taken to the basement of Heidi's parents' house, there, handcuffed, severely beaten, and all because of what they did to him, born from nerves for being exposed as scammers and also for not knowing what to do after they caught him, it was the first time they would commit a nefarious act.

A few days later, Heidi's grandmother gave her a letter that her mother had written to her. In it, she told her about everything they had done and how they had carried out Victor's murder.

Nothing Heidi did would bring Victor back to life and his parents would be free. Heidi tore up the letter, threw it in the trash and decided to live a life away from the traumas she had with everything that had happened.