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Harris. He was nothing like she’d expected.
     
    ***
     
    Friday after school, Bernie stopped by the police department substation near her trailer park to check in with the detective assigned to Gabby’s case. She made it a point to stop by once a week to see if any progress had been made and to generally be a pain in the ass so the cops wouldn’t forget about Gabby.
    “No, Bernie. There’s nothing new. Sorry.” Detective Garcia met her in the lobby. He had stopped inviting her back to his office cubby weeks ago. Now he tried to get rid of her as quickly as possible.
    “Nothing at all? Have you talked to her dad again? Maybe he remembers something else,” Bernie said.
    Detective Garcia took her by the elbow and ushered her toward the door. “Bernie, let us handle this. Seriously. I don’t need you playing amateur detective.”
    She pulled her arm away and planted her feet stubbornly. “You still think she ran away. Don’t you?”
    “Bernie, in cases like these—”
    “You mean cases where the girl is from a trailer park and Hispanic?”
    “I resent that, young lady! I’m Hispanic, in case you didn’t notice! Over half the population of Albuquerque is Hispanic, by the way.”
    “I’m just saying it sure doesn’t get the kind of police or media attention it should! If Gabby was white and from the good side of town—”
    “Knock it off, Bernie. It has nothing to do with her ethnicity or socioeconomic status. It has everything to do with her history. She was a troubled girl, and all the evidence points to her being a runaway.”
    “I don’t believe that. I can’t believe Gabby ran away. I knew her. We were best friends,” Bernie argued.
    “By your own admission, you haven’t been best friends in over two years. People change. Now I’m sorry, but I have a ton of work to do. Please stop coming by every week. I swear I’ll let you know if we get any more information.” He took her arm again and towed her to the front door.
    She turned back to argue with him more, but he was already rounding the corner of the reception counter on his way back to his office.
    She was late to the candlelight vigil. By the time she arrived, Natalia was already welcoming everyone—the fifteen or so people who had actually bothered to show up—and was launching into a truly awful poem she had written about Gabby.
    “Hey, Sofia.” Bernie grabbed a candle stuck through a plastic cup and lit it from the guy standing next to her. “Sorry I’m late.”
    “No problem. I’m just glad you could come. We have to create so much positive energy to bring Gabby home.” Sofia was part of the drama club and said weird, over-the-top stuff like this frequently.
    “Uh, yeah. Well…”
    “Natalia’s bummed that none of the news people showed up. She invited all of them. Oh, wait, there’s Univision! Oh good!”
    The Spanish news station stayed only a few minutes, barely long enough to get a sound bite, which Bernie would be surprised to ever see on the airwaves. She hated this kind of thing but tried to understand that everyone had their own way to grieve. She looked around to see who else still cared enough to show up nearly four months after Gabby’s disappearance. Conspicuously absent was Gabby’s boyfriend, Diego. They had supposedly been together that night and he was the last person to see Gabby, as far as the police knew.
    The rest of the crowd was comprised mainly of Natalia and Sofia’s friends. Bernie had watched them suck Gabby into their circle of vapid teens whose primary concern was when and where the next party would be held. Bernie had seen first-hand what partying did to a person with her mom, so she had no desire to join in, even if she’d been asked. But nobody had asked her. Ever.
    As she looked around at these supposed friends of Gabby, saw their tears, heard their bad poetry, she realized she didn’t belong here. Nobody here was concerned with where Gabby really was; they were only concerned with