Name: Kimimela Autumn Liu
Face Claim: Amber Midthunder
Occupation: Private investigator and waitress at Hale’s diner
Length of stay in Charming: Twenty-five years
Trigger warnings: murder mention, family annihilator killing mention, suicide mention, bullying mention ( all brief, not detailed )
+ resilient, perspicacious, witty
- sardonic, reticent, cynical
How do you feel about Charming?
“i don’t really know what you want me to say.” kim shifts uncomfortably in her seat. it’s clear she’s annoyed–arms crossed, jaw set. she’s felt like the town pariah for most of her life, which was truly saying something in a town like charming. “it doesn’t love me, so i tend to respond in kind–you know what i mean?” she should’ve left as soon as she could drive, but there was no way she could leave her family’s murder case unsolved. so she stayed; it was the punishment for surviving.
How do you feel about the Devil’s Disciples and the Wicked Wolves?
“i couldn’t really give a shit about either of them.” she’s projecting, but in actuality kim is more than certain that all those years ago the devils probably aided whomever killed her family. how else could they have escaped in such totality. “both of them make my job interesting and without the wolves, i wouldn’t be able to pay my bills. i’m pretty sure half the men i’ve been hired to track for infidelity have showed their faces at either their club or at the mayhem maidens.”
What’s the most important thing to you?
“the most important thing to me?” if her family had survived, it would’ve been them. although, if they’d survived, she thinks she would’ve likely taken them for granted. she’d have the good fortune of being annoyed with them or embarrassed by them instead of memorializing and canonizing them in her head and heart. if she liked her job, reallymeant to become a private investigator instead of using it as a means to an end, she might’ve said her job. “it’s proving that my father didn’t kill my family.” she’s spent her whole childhood as a pariah–local celebrity victim. the daughter of a family annihilator who was met with either tempered dislike or pity. solving her family’s case–or at least having it reopened–wouldn’t change that. at least it might clear her father’s name.
What are you most scared of?
kim sucks her teeth is sardonic amusement, breath leaving with a huff. “seriously? everybody wants to hear what little kimi liu is scared of.” it’s changed over the years and been many forms of the same shapeless figure that she can barely remember from childhood. like ‘it’ she thinks that it takes on whatever her latest fear is and turns itself into her latest suspects or, worse, the latest object of affection. “crickets.” she answers finally and it sounds like a joke, but the crickets were so loud that fateful night. she can hear them in that liminal space before she drifts off to sleep. she can feel her skin crawl when she hears them outside the city limits at night. she doesn’t think that even if the state didn’t take her parents’ ranch, when they died and she was sent into foster care, she’d ever be able to sleep there again.
Do you have any plans for your future? If you could have a million dollars right now, what would you do with it?
“you know all of those true crime specials that bring new interest in cold cases? i’d pay for a really good netflix one, so that charming pd would finally reopen the case.” it’s not news to anyone that the official ruling was that kim’s father killed the family and then himself. it wasn’t enough that reddit didn’t think that johnathon liu did it. reddit’s true crime conspiracy boards wouldn’t grant him a post-humous exoneration. “people love that kinda stuff. you’d have a new investigation within the hour.”
