Hooch

by Evan Cohen

It was a chilly Friday evening, but that didn’t bother Maeko; it was winter break and she had just finished her grueling six hour Pharmacology exam. Despite the cold, students were in high spirits, yelling across the field surrounding the Campanile. She glanced back at Striker, who looked beat. Her phone buzzed the familiar tune of First Time by Rihanna.

“Hello?” she answered her phone without looking at the caller ID.

“Maeko, where you at?” It was Akuji.

“I just finished finals, what’s going on tonight?” It hadn’t been hard for Maeko to adjust to life in America; on the contrary, she felt it was a good change of pace from Japan.

“We are going to hit a barbeque at the park, and then we’ll see.” He responded. “Can I pick you up somewhere?”

She thought for a moment, “Yeah, I’ll meet you at the bottom of Euclid.”

“See you there.” The phone clicked and went dead.

Maeko glanced back once more to see if Striker was still there, but he was walking the opposite direction and she didn’t feel like chasing after him. Soon Maeko was in the car with Akuji driving up to Codornices Park. They stepped out of the car, making casual conversation, and made their way up to the barbeque pit. It wasn’t long before Maeko had drunk a bit too much, but she was having fun, and the night was far from over. New faces surrounded her, and she was eager to make new acquaintances. The evening continued on in a haze, until she found herself stumbling into a stranger’s car and passing out.

She awoke in the passenger’s seat of the SUV to red and blue flashing lights. Uh-Oh she thought. She sat up. The sun was just starting to emerge from behind the park, casting an eerie glow on the Rose Garden that was across the street. She looked to her left, and was relieved to see a girl sitting in the driver’s seat tilted all the way back.

She got out of the car and shut the door as soundlessly as possible, but no one seemed to notice her. Police officers swarmed around a crumpled mass on the ground. She turned to one of the many officers.

“Excuse me officer, but what happened here?”

Without turning his head he answered distractedly, “Some kid has gone and drunk himself to death. No ID either”

She stood wordlessly. Staring at the body on the ground, soon the paramedics arrived and rolled the body onto a stretcher to reveal a face. Akuji.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. Tears started welling up in her eyes.

The police officer whom she had spoken to earlier finally turned to her, “You know this kid?”

“Yes,” she croaked through her tears.

“Can you identify him for me Miss?” he said without sympathy.

“His name is Akuji. Akuji Walker. Officer, I don’t understand, you said he drunk himself to death, but Akuji never drank.”

“I guess he did last night sweetheart,” he said with more sympathy, “Why don’t you come down with me to the station and you can make a statement.”

The questioning didn’t last long. They asked her about the night before. She told them what little she knew, and that she hadn’t spent much time with him that evening. She told them again and again that Akuji never drank. But they wouldn’t listen. The report showed that he had died from alcohol poisoning, so despite Maeko’s insistence it was logical that Akuji did drink, so she proceeded to tell them about his Diabetes and his horrible experience with alcohol when he was in high school.

Long after she had returned to her apartment she kept trying to rationalize the death of her best friend. How could something like this ever happen? After hours of tossing and turning in bed she concluded that there was no way Akuji would ever drink, and even if he did it was virtually impossible to think that he would kill himself. What bothered her most was that, according to the police report, there was no evidence that there was any struggle. She knew she was not getting any sleep that night, so she got up and dressed. Maeko decided she needed to talk to someone about Akuji, and she was going to start with his ex.

After a short walk to her dorm and a brief wait at the door Maeko found herself sitting at the table with Rose who, after giving herself an insulin shot, made tea for them both.

“So, what do I owe this very late night visit?” Rose started.

Maeko was slow to respond, still scanning the room, “You know about what happened to Akuji. Well, I don’t think he actually drank himself to death.”

Rose shifted in her chair, “I know you guys were close, but I went out with him for over a year. I wouldn’t put it past him.” She said harshly. “You don’t know what he did to me, the reason we broke up…” she trailed off. “He cheated on me. Maybe he got what he disserved.”

Maeko had heard enough. “Thanks for the tea,” she said getting up, “I have to go.” She walked straight to the door, but turned around when she heard a murmur from the bedroom. “Who’s that?”

Striker stepped sheepishly into the doorway, “Hey Maeko,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

Both Rose and Striker then answered at the same time, “Studying.”

Maeko gave them a look of confusion, stood up, and left without a word.

It was only I the wee hours of the morning that she concluded that she would need some real conclusive evidence, and the only way to do that would be to look at the body, and hopefully find something to prove that Akuji didn’t put back too many drinks.

The memorial was on Saturday, and it would be her last chance to look at the body. The speeches were long and drawn out, and Maeko could hardly sit in her chair. After the long tear inducing conversations with Akuji’s family, Maeko made her move.

“Would it be possible to have a minute alone, it would mean a lot to me” she said.

No one had any second thoughts about it, and filtered out of the room. As soon as they had left she opened the casket, and leaned over the body. For a moment tears welled up in her eyes, he didn’t deserve do die. She knew she had to focus, so she wiped them dry and began examining his injections. One stood out like a sore thumb. A single injection on his left side was not healed at all, her excitement welled up inside her. She became even more excited she she remembered that Akuji was right handed, he would never inject himself on the left side. Her heart skipped a beat.

Of course! The forensics would have disregarded a needle mark due to his diabetes, which means he could have been injected with alcohol. Now all she needed was to tell the police, and find out who did it. Back to Rose’s.

She had initially planned to approach the topic gently, but the moment Rose opened the door she could tell she was walking into the middle of an argument.

“Is everything ok?” she asked incredulously.

“Everything is fine,” Rose stated calmly.

Striker stood out of his chair, almost knocking it over, “Everything is not fine!”

“Not now Striker,” Rose hissed at him.

Maeko knew she was on thin ice. She didn’t want to get kicked out of the apartment, but she couldn’t just stand there. She straightened up, “I know about the needle,” she said.

Striker and Rose turned slowly towards her, speechless.

Maeko had no idea how things were going to pan out now, but she was fairly confident that they had killed Akuji. Confronting them seemed her only cores of action. “Rose, you’re a Diabetic, so you could have gotten a hold of a needle quite easily. Striker, you are a chemistry major, so you would have the means to hyper distill alcohol. So my question is, which one of you did it?”

Striker sat back into his chair slowly. “It was me. Rose had nothing to do with it.”

“Somehow I have trouble believing that, you never had anything against Akuji. Rose put you up to this, didn’t she? Maeko said pointing a finger at Rose.

“You don’t have any proof,” Rose fired back.

“I have a confession,” Maeko said, while pulling out her cell phone, which had recorded the whole conversation. With that she turned on her heals and marched out the door. They didn’t try to follow her, they were too surprised.

*******************

Two weeks later the police had a full confession from Striker. He had injected him with moonshine, which made quick work with his liver and then went to his brain and wreaked havoc there. In his statement, he told the police that he had done in because of Rose. But she hung him out to dry, and denied everything. Fortunately police forensics matched the needle marks to her insulin type, which was sufficient evidence to try her for conspiracy of murder. Maeko enrolled in a foreign exchange program that took her to Germany, Striker was sentenced to life, and Rose pleaded guilty to a 14 year sentence.