A Look Inside Justice, Deck of Lies Book 1

 

 

“We just need you to sit in here. Someone’s already on their way over.”

“My parents were supposed to be on the way over! Where’s my mom?” I could feel the tears bubbling in my eyes. Why wouldn’t anyone tell me what was going on? Had Carsyn denied my story? Did the store say I was shoplifting after all? Was I going to get charged with a crime? And why was my dad in handcuffs?

“Just sit in here.” We were back in the waiting room.

“Please,” a few tears spilled out of my eyes and down my cheeks. “Just tell me what’s happening.”

                He must have taken pity on me, because I saw something soften in his expression. “Your mom and dad are being held for questioning right now.”

“Questioning? But they didn’t have anything to do with the bracelet. I didn’t even call to tell them I was going shopping. I’m probably in trouble for that already. They really didn’t know about any of it!” I desperately tried to explain.

“It’s not about the bracelet.”

I frowned. “Then…what’s it about?”

Obviously he regretted getting into this conversation with me. He looked down at the toes of his boots before answering, and when he looked up he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You were flagged in the database as a missing person.” 

 

“But I’m not missing. I’m right here.”

“A social worker is on her way. She’ll be here any minute to explain it to you.”

“But I don’t understand. What crime are my parents being questioned about?” I asked.

He cleared his throat before answering. “They’re being questioned about a kidnapping, Rain.”

It didn’t really sink in right away. The word kept bouncing around in my suddenly-empty head, completely devoid of all meaning. Kidnapping.

But why would the police want to question them about something like that?

I wouldn’t get an answer for thirty-five minutes, the amount of time it took for the social worker to arrive. I made about a dozen calls on my mobile phone to Aaron, my mom and dad and the house phone, but no one answered and I just listened to empty, hollow ringing as my tension mounted. Finally the social worker came bursting into the room, but I heard her coming well before the door flew open. She was wearing the clunky, square-heeled kind of shoes that made loud, clip-clopping sounds on the linoleum floor. There was a run on the left leg of her pantyhose, and I could see a bit of lace where her hem was slipping past her wrinkle-resistant polyester skirt. It was a nondescript brown color, like her hair, and a poor match for the blue blouse she wore under the matching jacket.

“Rebecca Keene, Child Protective Services,” she introduced herself immediately, thrusting a pale, cold hand out toward me. I shook it automatically. She pulled back quickly, flipping open a manila folder to glance at it before looking back up at me. “You must be Chloe.”

“Chloe? No. I’m Rain Ramey.”

“Ramey. Ramey,” she flipped open the folder again, turning pages. “Yes of course. Rain, right?”

“That’s me.” I nodded. Then, all the questions came exploding out of me. “What’s going on? Where are my parents? The policeman said something about kidnapping?”

She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was just one of many tendrils that had escaped the bun at the nape of her neck. Rebecca Keene looked tired and harried, and I’d never missed my mother more than I did in that moment. “That’s right, Rain. Your parents are still being questioned in connection with an infant girl who disappeared more than fourteen years ago.”

My head tilted to one side as I stared at her. “But it’s all just a misunderstanding. My parents haven’t kidnapped anybody.”

Rebecca Keene gazed at me before her eyes lowered to the folder in front of her. “Today, the child would be sixteen years old. At birth, she had blue eyes and blonde hair. Like all babies born in the Silverwood Hospital since 1985, her fingerprints were taken shortly after she was born. The fingerprints found a match for the first time tonight,” her dark green eyes found mind before she continued. “When your ten-print card was ran through the database.”

My ears were ringing again. I felt my fingertips go numb. My eyes were cloudy; it seemed as though I was looking at Rebecca Keene through fog. “I don’t understand.”

“Rain, you are a match for that missing child. Arthur and Rhianna Ramey are not your natural parents. They abducted you from your home when you were eighteen months old.”

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10 Pieces of Fashion with a Surprising Military History

There are fashions you wear every day that are so ordinary, so innocent and so simple, you would never think they all began from very violent military origins.

Khakis

Khaki is a color but it's used so frequently in pants, the word "khaki" alone is enough to describe a pair of paints in a nondescript, light brown sort of color that has become the uniform of customer service representatives around the world. It's a color that has been used to make everything including pants, from home furnishings to curtains. You can even get khaki car paint.

Today, khaki is associated with the most benign fashion and decor. It's downright boring, vanilla, run-of-the-mill. And yet, this color has a rather violent past.

The year was 1846 and the British military had been occupying India for about 70 decades. The British, being British, wore heavy wool uniforms in bright red, the same kind of stuff they were wearing when they fought the colonists in America in the 1770s.

And frankly, the uniforms were heavy and bright and ridiculous.

Indian soldiers didn't wear heavy wool. They wore lightweight cotton that they smeared with local mud and sometimes tea. This created a light brownish color shade. It was noticed by Henry Lumsden, who was leading the Corps of Guides for Her Majesty the Queen.

Lightweight khaki-colored garments were adapted by the British and by 1848, official uniforms were issued. The color spread from there and became synonymous with lightweight cotton pants. The word khaki comes from Hindustani for "soil-colored."

Bermuda shorts

Before 1914, men didn't really wear shorts. Like, at all. Shorts were for children, maybe athletes sometimes. Men wore pants. At least, they did.

But sometimes, it's just not practical. Like in the year 1914 in Bermuda. The world was at war and there were British soldiers stationed on the island. And what do British soldiers like to drink? That's right: tea.

Coxon's Tea Room was hot and crowded thanks to the new rush of clients. The servers were having trouble maintaining energy in the stuffy space. So Nathaniel Coxon came up with an idea: put them in shorts. He envisioned somewhat long shorts made in a lightweight material that would be cool and comfortable to wear, breezy and easy in the hot tea room.

Admiral Berridge of His Majesty's navy was taking his tea at Coxon's when he noticed the effect the short pants had on the servers. He decided to put his men in Bermuda shorts, too, and soon most of the British military stationed on the island had on short pants. When vacationers to the island noticed the shorts, they embraced them and took them back to England and America. Soon, Bermuda shorts caught on everywhere.

Plaid

Plaid is heavily associated with Scottish history but the pattern has a long military history, too. Used in Scotland from at least the 1700s to identify particular family and clan affiliations based on color and pattern, plaid became military wear in 1745. This is when the Royal Highland Regiment wore the now-famous Black Watch pattern. It had no clan affiliation and it became the look of the Scottish rebellion.

It wasn't a symbol for long. The Scottish were defeated in 1746 and the British created the Dress Act, which banned tartans outside of military wear. Plaid and tartan became associated with the military but also a symbol of Scottish heritage. When it make its way to the U.S. near the turn of the century, it became a popular fashion staple.

Cardigan

The cardigan is associated with learned professors, with soft and comfortable warmth, with all things non-threatening. This makes it extra ironic that this piece of fashion is associated with one of the worst military disasters of all time.

The cardigan came to fame during the Crimean War and would become immortalized in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. James Thomas Brudenell wasn't much of a military strategist. But he was quite the natty dresser, apparently. Brudenell, an officer in Her Majesty's army, dressed his men and himself in a striking trimmed waistcoat made out of wool.

Brudenell was the 7th Earl of Cardigan and he became linked with the ill-fated charge, during which he led his troops to their certain doom with far more arrogance than the situation warranted. But his name became linked, too, with the fancy wool waistcoats that became popular after this military disaster.

The cardigan changed over the years and finally took on its final form, but its origin story is one of bloodshed and battle and mistakes.

T-shirt

Everyone owns a T-shirt, everyone has a favorite T-shirt, everyone knows this is this is a go-to casual garment you can wear any time, all the time. But there was a day before the T-shirt ever existed. And because the T-shirt exists now, you can thank the British navy.

Wearing a rather loose-fitting cotton or linen shirt under clothing was something men did dating back to the medieval era. But it wasn't until new knitting methods were invented that the shirts became more form-fitting, more refined, more like the modern T-shirt.

In the late 1800s, British sailors were commonly wearing white flannel undershirts beneath their wool uniforms. The British Royal Navy allowed them to wear just these undershirts while on the deck. In the 1880s, the U.S. Navy included similar loose flannel shirts as part of their standard uniform. They were known as "lightweight short-sleeve white cotton undervests."

In 1913, Cooper Underwear Company changed the game. They began producing "bachelor undershirts," which had the more modern shape and design of today's T-shirts. It wasn't until 1920 that the word "t-shirt" became a thing and now, it’s one of the most worn piece of fashion in the world.

Blazer

The HMS Blazer takes credit for being the namesake and birthplace of the blazer, which some say was first worn by the crew of the frigate in 1837. The crew was part of Her Majesty's Royal Navy and when Queen Victoria herself visited them, they wanted to look their best. They wore double-breasted jackets with gold buttons to impress her and look quite polished.

Others say that the blazer was actually worn first by Oxford and Cambridge students while rowing. Either way, the blazer did become popular with students and with many, many other people during the mid-1800s.

Wristwatches

Before the 1900s, only women wore wristwatches. It didn't much matter if they worked, either, as wristwatches were more about being fashionable than about keeping the time. All men wore pocket watches, if they had watches at all.

Pocket watches were supremely inconvenient during the first World War. Men in the trenches found that checking the time was a deadly practice. It became the fashion to attach pocket watches to the wrist to make things easier.

In 1917, Cartier designed the now-iconic Tank watch. Soon, trench watches caught on with soldiers and in a few years, wristwatches were a fashion standard among both genders.

Belt

The belt is probably one of the oldest pieces of fashion ever invented. People in the Stone Age wore wraps and pelts that were cinched around their bodies with cords. Ancient Greeks and Romans used belt-like cords to keep their tunics closed. Roman fashion would have looked quite different otherwise.

But belts in a more modern form first appeared on the knights of the medial era. They wore elaborate great belts with buckles that held swords and other items. These belts were thicker, heavier, more substantial than the simple cord belts of the past. The buckle closure on this version of the belt closely resembles the modern buckle that's in use today.

Beanie

Knit caps that keep the head warm date back to ancient times. They were worn by soldiers in the 1830s during the Lower Canada Rebellion, waged between French Canadian patriots and British colonial authorities.

But the modern snug-fitting beanie first appeared as watch caps that were born by Navy soldiers during WWII. When civilians started wearing beanies, bright colors and patterns became a regular part of the design.

Scarves

Scarves are highly practical garments that keep you warm, so it makes sense that they are thousands of years old. But historical evidence suggests that scarves began as a military garment. They were used to identify military ranks. Ancient Chinese warriors used them and men fighting in the trenches in WWI wore them. Scarves have a long, long military history.

The bright scarves worn by Croatian mercenaries during the Thirty Year War, which lasted from 1618 to 1648, caught the eye of fashion-forward French people. They called the neckwear la croate or la cravate, and started wearing it fashionably. This thin, short scarf was the grandfather of the modern necktie.


Sources:

BBC - The T-shirt: A rebel with a cause
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180202-t-shirts-the-worlds-most-expressive-garment

Country & Town House - The Very British History of the Blazer
https://www.countryandtownhouse.com/style/british-history-blazers/

The Dreamstress - Terminology: the history of the cardigan
https://thedreamstress.com/2016/04/terminology-the-history-of-the-cardigan/

Encyclopedia Brittanica - girdle
https://www.britannica.com/topic/girdle-clothing#ref1247397

Gentleman's Gazette - Why Did Men Start Wearing Belts?
https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/men-start-wearing-belts/

Heddels - The History of Khaki: Anything But Drab
https://www.heddels.com/2019/05/history-khaki-anything-drab/

Heddels - History of the Watch Cap – From Monmouth to The Monkees
https://www.heddels.com/2017/12/history-of-the-watch-cap-2/

Jetset Times - The Fascinating History Of Bermuda Shorts
https://jetsettimes.com/countries/bermuda/the-fascinating-history-of-bermuda-shorts/

Real Men Real Style - 11 Style Items With A Military Heritage
https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/style-items-with-military-origin/

Stitch Fix - The History of Plaid
https://www.stitchfix.com/men/blog/features/the-history-of-plaid/

The New York Times - Wrist Watches: From Battlefield to Fashion Accessory
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/fashion/wrist-watches-from-battlefield-to-fashion-accessory.html

Vogue - Everything to know about the history of the blazer
https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/trends/everything-to-know-about-the-history-of-the-blazer/image-gallery/dd07db6a3e45b3cbaff5851eb1b20398