August 08, 2024 (5 years later)
I found her on a Friday, we interviewed her on a Saturday. I saw her briefly on that following Thursday by that night she attempted her life. It was quite an ordeal she had been through, we all thought at the time. So, although, it wasn’t something any of us had expected, it was much understood.
Campbell had tried killing herself with her bare hands. Which is, apparently, impossible to do since one normally passes out before death can occur; restoring oxygen flow to the brain. Campbell had squeezed her neck until she lost consciousness and then would wake up and attempt it again. The doctor informed me she would have had to have done this 20-35 times, at least, in order to achieve the level of brain damage that she did. Her neck was severely purple, in fact, a slight shade darker than a turnip where her hands had been and you could trace the outline of her fingertips in her throat.
She slipped into a coma, the kind of one she would never be expected to recover from but her daddy kept refusing to pull the plug. So, she lingered in that fog of the un-dying for several weeks. Because of this we found out about the pregnancy in time. She was six or seven weeks along, depending on which nurse you asked. The doctors had convinced Evan that she could safely carry the baby to term if they kept her in a vegetative state. So those several weeks of fog turned into months.
The official story was that Sonny Samuels kidnapped Campbell because he was possessed by her, raped and beat her for five days and, as a result, had gotten her pregnant. It was much speculated that perhaps Campbell had known she was with child and that’s why she chose this particular method. There was a 13-year old girl who went viral a few months back after she raved about how she successfully aborted her baby by starving it of oxygen without killing herself. Fool-proof she called it. But everything I’ve read on the subject of pregnancy suggests symptoms don’t usually develop until the second or third month. Even a missed period could take several weeks to notice. So I just assumed, or maybe it was simply hoped, she didn’t know. Just chose an awful way to go.
With Evan on an indefinite leave of absence, I was in need of a new partner and, surprisingly, had my pick of the litter. I was the hero of the department. I saved one of our own, on my own, and everyone that was anyone now wanted a piece of me. The rooms I walk into are loud and are no longer filled with awkward stares. I’d seen people’s houses, who I’d eaten lunch with and talked to after twelve months, for the very first time. I’ve seen the insides of several refrigerators now. So believe me when I tell you that I know that girl really was magic.
Although the case was pretty much closed, Campbell’s story of the circus kept it alive in my head over the following months. There were so many things I didn’t understand. It never really did sit right with me but eventually life goes on. There are new open cases, with new, fresh details to be consumed with. Plus, my career really took off after that. I was one of the first people considered for promotions. I was included in dinners that could advance my position long term. I was part of the club. To be honest, I didn’t even really work as hard as I did before. I was paired with good partners who did good work, so I coasted. But this time people didn’t find that to be a flaw. I had earned it in their eyes.
It’s been five years. I haven’t thought about all of this for four of them to say the least and would’ve continued like that for another five if it wasn’t for that movie. It was the film that brought all of this to the surface again. A small, artsy, French film. I happened upon the trailer late one night and it was like someone punched a hole in my chest all over again. A juggler, a clown, Siamese twins, a contortionist, a fat lady, a magician, his assistant, a ring leader and a missing girl.
I had to wait an entire month in anticipation for the movie to be released. I scheduled a personal day for the very first time. I even traveled an hour and a half to a theater that only had day showings. The movie starred an actress who went by the single name of Circe. I had seen her before in a couple of films. Her name always brought up some feelings within me that I usually called coincidental and dismissed but this time I couldn’t shake the fact that it was odd.
In the movie, near all the details were the same except one- the ringleader’s daddy was still alive. The ringleader helped the magician stage her own kidnapping. The ringleader paid the groundskeeper to keep the magician at his house for two days. Everyone knew the groundskeeper was in love with the magician and that he was capable of harm. Everyone knew how much the magician’s daddy didn’t care for any boys snooping around his daughter, especially the groundskeeper. Everyone also knew that the magician would get all of the attention because of who her daddy knew around town.
It was implied, all throughout the movie, that the magician’s daddy was molesting his little girl but the big reveal was that it was the ringleader who was the one being molested by her own father. So, with any great trick, while everyone was looking at Magi, no one noticed the real bunny disappear. Of course, there was a slight hiccup in the plan. The groundskeeper was only supposed to keep Magi for two days but his lust for her had overcome him and he kept her chained up for five. Throughout the movie, there was this woman who was a regular at the shows and who had developed an unfulfilled crush on the magician’s daddy. She happened upon the groundskeeper, followed him back to his house, killed him and saved Magi in hopes of winning the favor of the girl’s father. It didn’t say whether or not it worked out for them in the end.
I left the theater that day feeling ill. I went home and turned it upside down looking for my old notebooks. I traced back in my memory banks all the details I had forgotten over five years. Whatever happened to Bianca Bailey? I remembered that around that time another girl had gone missing. I would later find out it was Bianca’s housekeeper that had come in trying to complete a report. A detective had taken down her information and had promised to call her to follow-up. The detective said when he finally did get around to calling her back she had retracted her story. So he filed away her report and moved on.
The one thing I wanted to do about all of this I couldn’t. I could not drop it. I had to know what happened. If it all were true. Did I kill an innocent man? I found it curious a guy as rich and as powerful as Rib Bailey could have a daughter drop off the face of the Earth and no one know. I did a search in our database for his name. It pulled up one record dated July 17, 2019. It said that Mr. Bailey had come in trying to file a missing person’s report himself. He was told the same thing we tell all parents with missing 17 year old kids. Hire a P.I., there isn’t much we can do when they are almost eighteen. Rib Bailey died suddenly after that.
Ribbit headquarters had moved to Switzerland and had taken new ownership after Rib Bailey’s death. His will left everything to a trust issued to his daughter. I had hoped I could trace the withdrawals to an address but the money remains untouched. The trust papers had an address listed tha narrowed to a P.O. Box and several more dead ends. So, I ran a search on the only other person I could think to get some answers from and visited Circe at her home.
Bianca Bailey answered the door in a silk nightgown that dragged on the floor as she smiled, turned her back to me and walked out of the foyer like she knew I would come. I had never seen her before in the flesh. Before I left, I had pulled up an old driver’s license photo of her at sixteen and there she stood.
She wasn’t anything like I expected all those years ago. She was very much like I had known Campbell to be—quiet, reserved. Not the loaded gun I was expecting. She offered me a drink, which I took, and asked me how I liked her film. She told me she wrote and directed part of it herself and had her boyfriend help fund and distribute it. She makes millions now, she said, but this film, which will probably never be remembered as one she was ever in, was her baby.
I took a long swig from my glass and tried but failed to cut off the tears from forming within the crevices of my eyes. She looked long and hard at me with an air of pity and I swear that I had never felt worse than I did then. But that pity propelled her to speak without me having to start, which I don’t think I could’ve done on my own. So I alternated, repeatedly, between thanking her and God in my head.
She told me she wasn’t sure why Campbell chose them as her friends to begin with but that she could only guess that she needed them as much as they had needed her. Then Bianca began that when her dad was away, she would invite the group over for slumber parties. Of course, Campbell never came to those. But that when her daddy was home, she would never invite her friends over. Campbell had, somehow, picked up on this pretty early and had forced herself to come over one night when her dad was home. Bianca had insisted, practically to the point of tears, but couldn’t convince Campbell that it wasn’t a good time. Campbell just told her it would be their little secret.
Everything was going good that night until around ten. Bianca said she was growing nervous as this would be the time her Father would casually stroll in. She didn't know what to do. So she left Campbell asleep in the bed. She didn’t want to, but she was terrified to cause a disruption in his schedule. So she hid in the closet and waited but must’ve fallen asleep on the floor. Her daddy came in like he did almost every night that he was home and that’s how Campbell discovered her secret. After that, they were thick as thieves. Bianca said Campbell, being the fiery one of the pair, would say something about fucking him off her hands anytime for her, free of charge.
Bianca said that was the freest she had ever been with another soul. Campbell was special. She knew how to find anyone’s secrets but no one could know hers and that’s how she liked it. I asked her if she thought Campbell had any secrets of her own. She nodded but said Campbell never once let on that she had, never once felt the urge to confess, so she could only assume there was nothing to tell. But that we’d probably never know.
Bianca said Campbell would joke about a lot of things. In fact, that’s how the group’s nicknames were formed. Campbell had assigned them all code names—Dirt, Juggler, etc.—that only the two of them knew about. Campbell referred to them all as the circus of the series of unfortunate reincarnations. Said there were tragic overtones deep in each of their DNA’s and that no matter which path they all chose, misery would follow. However, Campbell said Bianca was different and felt that any hindrances to her happiness were self-imposed and to not get too comfortable slumming it with the rest of them.
Bianca told me that if I came knocking on her door, Campbell must’ve told me those code names too. Bianca said Campbell loved me a lot and that she wished me and her father would’ve gotten married and that I could’ve been her mother. That was the hardest part of this to swallow.
The plot formed very much the same as was depicted in her movie. Campbell devised the plan for Sonny Samuels to kidnap her so that Bianca could escape. Bianca called her father's secretary and told her she would be joining him on his pre-planned trip to Switzerland after all but was informed she couldn't get her a seat on the same flight. A circumstance, that worked out even more divinely than expected Bianca boarded the plane but never made the connecting flight. She stated how she lived in fear that first year, feeling as though every knock at the door was someone trying to bring her back but that no one ever once questioned. She said it was exactly how Campbell had told her it would go.
Then Bianca explained the
guilt she felt after it was all said and done. That she had trusted Campbell in
Dirt’s care. She knew he had a streak of violence but never thought he would
use it against Campbell. Said he really did love her. She said they had
discussed, previously, what would happen if things went wrong. Campbell had made her swear that no matter what she heard or read to never come out of hiding or
reveal who she was, and as hard as it was, she obeyed.
Bianca said she went to France until her father’s passing. Met quite a few movie stars there. Everyone always thought Campbell would be the actress and that’s why Bianca chose that profession and made this movie, as an ode to her. Bianca explained that she would forever be grateful to Campbell for what she endured for her. Had she stayed, her father would’ve insisted she take over Ribbit, which would’ve meant she would have to endure his advances for the rest of his natural life and, in fact, had resolved herself to that fate until Campbell came along, shit on it and offered her a better one.
I told Bianca I knew about the trust. She asked me if I wanted half a billion dollars and implied that she would rather see it burn than to use a cent of it on herself. I got the feeling she would’ve given it to me too if I had taken the bait. I asked her why she thought her father never went public about her disappearance. With his access to resources, he could’ve easily had her found. Bianca said she mailed him a video of the two of them two months after she left with a note that read try it. Said that was Campbell’s idea too.
Bianca asked about Campbell’s baby, Evan, and if I had heard from any of the others. I told Bianca that I saw Campbell’s baby shortly after Campbell died but that after Evan moved, we all lost touch with them. As far as everyone else, I told her I did have a few updates, since I still speak with Desiree’s mother from time to time.
Mikey Malabarista is back in college and is engaged. He had taken a few years off when his mother’s health had declined for a while there but she recovered. His father still works for the school. Desiree Kessie and Richard and Riley Cowen still live at home with their parents. Maurice Jolly Jr. and his wife both welcomed a new baby boy and live in a neighboring town. Keiva Gamati moved over seas and does competitions in her down time. She has made it to the Olympics twice so far, in fact, once just earlier this year, but hasn’t placed as of yet. She is training to go back in 2028.
I left Circe’s house and cried the entire ride home debating on what to do next which has led me to now. It is with this heavy heart that I’ve decided to resign from my position as Lieutenant of Newbury PD effective immediately and that I can no longer accept the position of Captain when it becomes available next year. I thought I was making a difference, and maybe I have in a lot of lives, but not in the one life where it mattered.
This is my written statement as to the events that occurred back in March 2019. I understand that everything I have written can be used against me in the court of law and fully accept any consequences for my neglectful actions. I apologize to the Samuels, Bailey and Campbell families and hope that my resignation is the first step towards making amends.
Sincerely,
LaKeisha Plume
This work is created by, written by and belongs to Aecko and shared here for entertainment.