Last Dance. David Russell W.

you’re fighting to change all that with your progressive attitude.”

      She raised her arm in a salute as she headed for the door. “Chicks rule,” she proclaimed. “Watch and learn, girlfriend.”

      Krista Ellory sat sullenly at the small table in the characterless interview room, the only furnishing beyond the table being five metal folding chairs. If there was remorse in her head for having contributed to the badly misspelled mischief on my doorway, it was well masked. Indeed, she looked as though she was ready to kill.

      “Hi, Krista,” Andrea’s voice came sweetly through the intercom on the wall, and if you didn’t know her, it sounded like a teenager’s.

      “Who the fuck are you?” Krista asked.

      My detective super-hero friend remained calm. “I’m Andrea,” she said, her name ending with a youthful upward inflection that made it sound as if she wasn’t sure of her own identity. “I was hoping we could talk.”

      “Like that’ll fucking happen, old woman,” was Krista’s response. I glanced towards the mother. If her daughter’s language was anything out of the ordinary, Mom gave no sign. She also made no attempt to correct her daughter’s behaviour.

      “Krista,” Andrea continued in mock disbelief, like Krista had just asked her to do her math homework. “I really want to help you here.”

      “Really?” Krista’s face momentarily lit up then instantly turned dark again. “Fuck you!”

      Andrea sighed and shook her head, giving every indication Krista’s unwillingness to accept her overtures truly hurt. “I’m having a hard time understanding why you want to make me the enemy here,” she said quietly.

      “Because you’re the fucking pigs. Is that clear enough for you, or do I need to draw you a fucking picture?” If there had been any doubt Krista had been present during the spray paint purchase, it quickly evaporated: she had taken to clearly articulating the “ing” at the end of her expletives, a trait she had in common with Courtney MacMillan.

      “Mrs. Ellory, perhaps you’d like to speak with your daughter a moment to see if you can convince her to talk with me?” I wasn’t hopeful, but Krista’s mother sat forward in her chair as though she was reluctantly willing to try, before Krista abruptly cut her off.

      “Just sit back and keep your fucking mouth shut,” she told her mother. “I don’t need my fucking mother to speak for me. Anything you’ve got to say, you’d better have the balls to say it to me.” I was trying to picture speaking to my mother with that language and in that tone. Right about the time the last word of the sentence escaped my lips, I’m quite certain my father would have intervened. He would have killed or at least seriously maimed me for even thinking of speaking to my mother like that.

      “Krista, please,” Andrea said calmly. “I really am trying to help you here. Couldn’t we just talk, woman to woman?”

      “Sure. Right after you do some ditch-licking, you fucking dyke.” It took some seconds before I even understood the metaphor.