Green Day Mystery

Billie’s voice trailed off. He turned to look at his band mates, fear and panic present on his eyes. Mike and Tre realized what Billie was implying. They knew what had happened to their five innocent children; the children that were more of a life-altering event then becoming rock stars. Their children…had been kidnapped.

O.K. Let’s remain calm. Maybe we overlooked something,” said Tre.

“Yeah. Maybe they left a note and it fell to the floor,” added Mike.

“Let’s start at the entrance door to the hotel room. We should spread out to different parts of the room and look slowly and careful. Anything out of the ordinary is a clue to their whereabouts,” finished Billie.

They began to search the main room for evidence. The first thing they found was Ramona’s black hooded jacket; the jacket she wore everywhere. She had made her dad buy it even though it was all black. Ramona’s mother never liked the color, but Tre told her that it didn’t reflect her personality at all; it was just a hooded jacket that was nicely made that happened to be all black and the only color the store had in stock. Tre picked it up and searched the pockets in hope of a note. The only thing he found was her black and silver cell phone.

“That is totally weird. My daughter would never go anywhere without this jacket. Remember two nights ago, she freaked out because she wasn’t in the same room with it? Another thing, she is obsessed over this cell phone,” Tre said as he pushed some of the cell phone buttons. “It’s off. She never has her phone off. Even when Ramona has it charging, it’s on.”

After a couple seconds, Tre continues.

I always told her that she wastes time and energy when she charges her cell phone when it’s still on. She never listened to me. She always told me to stop being so controlling over her. Maybe I was too controlling for her high-strung sprit…”

Tre leaned on the wall adjacent to the door, slid against it to sit on the floor and buried his face into his daughter’s jacket. He smelled the strong scent of her vanilla perfume and the faint smell of the cinnamon gum was always chewed.

“…She wasn’t kidnapped; she ran away. Joey, Jakob, Stella, and Frankito must have followed her. Then somebody kidnapped them when they were out of the room. It’s all my fault the kids are gone. It’s all my fault… all my fault…” Tre began weeping into Ramona’s jacket and held her cell phone close to his chest, close to his heart.

Billie and Mike joined him on the floor. Mike began rubbing Tre’s back while Billie tried to pry his face from his daughter’s jacket. When their attempts to calm Tre down had failed, they too began to cry. A few minutes later, they heard a knock on the hotel door. The men stared at the door and a ray of hope passed through their minds. (Maybe it was their kids returning from wherever they had been!) Green Day raced to their feet and Mike swung open the door. Outside was their friend Jason White; their friend since 1990, ever since they were all 17 years old.

“What’s wrong? Calm down, please,” Jason pleaded with them. “I can hear you three in my room, which is across the hall and five rooms down. Calm down and tell me what’s wrong. I can’t understand any of you. How can I help you when I can’t learn what upset you guys this bad?”

After ten minutes of deep breaths, Green Day had calmed down enough to tell him that their children were gone and that it is possible that they had been kidnapped.

“Have you called anybody to report them missing?” questioned Jason.

“No, but I guess it’s time...” Billie’s voice trailed off. “It always breaks my heart to see those posters of kidnapped children. Now our kids…” He started to cry again.

“Hey, stay calm,” soothed Jason.

“I don’t know how you two think, but I’m beginning to think that keeping our kids out of the limelight by hiding them from the paparazzi’s cameras was a bad idea. Maybe if the public knew what they looked like, it might have been harder to kidnap them,” Mike said. “It’s time to tell their mothers that they’re gone and report the kidnapping to the local police department.”

Mike stood up from the floor and tried walking into the kitchen where the room phone was located but Jason grabbed his wrists, preventing him from moving any farther.

“Have I ever told you guys that when I was about 12 years old, I had my own detective agency?” asked Jason.

“Dude, what is the matter with you? Our five innocent children are missing and you want to tell us a story about your childhood?!!?” raged Tre.

“Tre’s right. We don’t need a bedtime story right know, even though it is bedtime. Who do you think you are?!” Billie added in the same tone of voice as Tre.

“I didn’t mean it to be insensitive. I’m just trying to help. Besides, you can’t report them missing yet; they haven’t been missing for 48 hours. As I was saying, I solved a lot of mysteries when I was younger. Let me try to find some more evidence. Maybe you guys will get lucky and I’ll find your kids. The chances are that your kids are still somewhere in the hotel,” Jason said.

“What makes you so sure?” asked Mike. “The kidnapper could be anywhere with them by now.”

“Well… considering the high security, I’m just guessing that your kids haven’t left this hotel. I mean, the security guards saw the kids arrive with you and every time that they have left the hotel, it has been with all of three of you. I highly doubt that a hotel security guard would let Ramona, Joey, Stella, Jakob, or Frankito leave with somebody other then you. But the facts show that they were most likely taken in a group…If I was a security guard, I wouldn’t let them go. Only a guard without a brain would let them leave the hotel without at least one of you three,” said Jason, trying not to laugh at the last thing he said.

“If you don’t stop being such a smart mouth, I will punch you in the mouth and make you dumb,” warned Mike as he made a fist with his right hand.

“Alright. I’ll stop. Now tell me how you came to the conclusion that your kids have been kidnapped,” Jason said.

Billie, Mike, and Tre told Jason about when they last saw their children, the hotel room being dark and cold, the kids’ room being clean, the jigsaw puzzle area being a mess, Ramona’s favorite jacket being left in the room, her cell phone being left in one of the pocket and the fact that the phone was off.

“Well… the first thing that we need to do is finish searching the room for evidence of the crime. You three get started on that while I run back to my room to get some paper and something to write with,” Jason said as he opened the hotel door.

“Why do you need paper and something to write with for?” asked Billie.

“I’ll write down what we think is evidence so it is easier to transport it when we start physically looking for them,” explained Jason.