Inciting Investigations

Chapter 16

Birdy Anders

Birdy sat on the floor in a circle with Julian to her left and Badger to her right. She had no idea why they were sitting on the floor in Badger’s house when the couch was right behind them, but that didn’t matter. She had just walked into the house to find Badger and Julian on the floor and sat down next to them without questioning the situation.

That was another thing that was different now. She had noticed a shift in her partnership with the two boys to be more comfortable. Now, instead of knocking and waiting for Badger to open up the door for her, the door was simply left unlocked, and she let herself in every day.

She was with the three of them to go over more stuff for the Anders case. Technically, this was usually their afterschool time to work on the Mermaid Project, but they were already ahead on that and used class time efficiently, so they weren’t too worried about the fate of their grade. So the couple of hours that she spent at the Pasternack residence everyday afterschool had very quickly devolved into just working on this.

Birdy was just glad that the other two were actually taking this whole thing seriously. She hadn’t been sure what to expect when they first set up this partnership, but she hadn’t known that they would be nearly as dedicated as she is to finding Tempest. It was surprising. It's a good kind of surprising. Don’t get her wrong, but still surprising nonetheless.

Birdy looked over at Julian and saw a twisted look of concentration on his face. The kind where his eyebrows scrunched up and his mouth tightened into a thin line. She wasn’t very shocked to see him like that. That was how he always looked when they were working on this. In her whole memory of ever knowing him, these were probably the only times she could recall him not having a smile on his face. She wasn’t sure what his secret to happiness was.

She then looked over to Badger and saw that he had a mechanical pencil in his mouth being aggressively gnawed on while his fingers bouncily drummed on his knees. She wasn’t quite sure where he had picked up those mannerisms, but he always did it whenever he had his full attention on anything. It was a bit funny, but she was still a bit grossed out by the fact that he still used the pencil with his spit on it to write down his notes.

She fought not to laugh at their silly expressions. It was a difficult task, but she managed.

Birdy shook her head and zeroed in her focus on her computer again. She needed to stay on task. They were all researching Jacob Hensen’s family again. His father was dead, and since the time that the report had been made by Dorinna Singh, his mother had also died.

Leaving the only last living close relative of his to be his younger sister. He hadn’t had that many friends when he was alive, from what they could tell, at least. He seemed like a bit of a loner. He did have an ex-girlfriend who was still alive, but they weren’t sure if they should try and contact her or not. Let alone trust what she says about him, so they were looking more into his little sister. She seemed like the best source of information right then.

Her name was Sarah Kayley Hensen, and they couldn’t find too much about her. She had an Instagram account, but that still wasn’t much to go off of. Most of her pictures were either of her cat, her coffee, or her neatly made bed. It was definitely one of those accounts that was made mostly for aesthetics, but it was very pretty, and Birdy liked it a lot.

Her name there was ‘sarahs_love’ and didn’t showcase that many personal details. There were a grand total of two pictures, out of over one hundred, that showed her face. Even in those half, her face was covered by either a blanket or a cup of coffee that she was drinking.

Birdy checked FaceBook, which Sarah apparently didn’t have. She did have TikTok, but that was mostly the same thing as her Instagram. The only difference was that there were more funny videos of her cat being dumb. She also had Twitter, but that was mostly just her talking about music that she enjoyed and having arguments over whether or not Starbucks and City Brew should be considered ‘real coffee’. Those get heated sometimes.