CAW! The crow swoops over me and I duck my head, frightened, but not of the bird. Something else lingers here and it plans to hurt me. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. A woman appears from the fog, her amber eyes going wide when she sees me. “Valerie, you have to get out of here, my darling. It’s not safe.”
Huh? Before I get a chance to respond she raises her hands, white light blasting from them and sending me into darkness.
“Valerie? Are you up there?!” My mother’s shrill voice travels up the stairs and I groan, getting out of bed. What the fuck happened? The last thing I remember was having shots with Nat, Jess, and Sally.
I try to remember, but no, it’s no use. It’ll come back after the hangover fades away. Instead I call to my mom as I walk to my closet, grabbing fresh clothes for the day. “Yeah, Mom, I’m up here. I’ll be down in a sec, I’m just going to have a shower quickly.”
I don’t wait for a response, going into my adjoining bathroom and I freeze when I see myself. Holy fuck!
My dress from last night hangs off me in tatters and nearly every inch of me is coated in blood. I scream, rubbing at my arms to wipe the dried blood off. The sound of pounding footsteps coming up the stairs can be heard even over my cries. I run out to my room, calling for help when my bedroom door slams open.
Two policemen burst in, guns raised and pointing at me. I scream as one of them dives at me, flipping me and trying to pull my hands behind me. I try to crawl out from him but his hold is iron tight. “If you don’t stop I will be forced to taser you for trying to escape.”
I nod and hold perfectly still as he yanks my hands behind me, putting handcuffs on me. The pain from them bites into my skin and I turn my head, looking for my mom but only seeing the other police officer. When he sees me looking at him he turns his head away.
Tears stream down my face as I try to comprehend what is happening to me. The police officer is speaking as he hauls me to my feet. My head is filled with a buzzing and I just nod, not sure what is being said.
He leads me out of my room, keeping a firm grip on my shoulder, the other cop in front of us as we walk down the stairs into the foyer. My mother is waiting by the door, dressed in a nightgown. As we pass her the officer leading me out the door pauses. “Thank you for calling in the tip, Mrs. Jones.”
I don’t hear my mother’s reply before I’m jostled into the back of a police cruiser, my heart racing.
“Please, can you tell me what’s going on?” I plead, leaning towards the glass partition, hoping for some kind of explanation as to what is happening to me.
The officers exchange glances before starting the car. The cop in the passenger side gives me a side glance, “You’re under arrest for murder.” I lean back into the seat, shocked. Murder? What the fuck?
On the short ride to the station the officer reads me my Miranda Rights again because while I was being handcuffed I seemed to have blocked it out.
As the familiar surroundings go by, I try to remember the night before and what happened. I remember the nightmare and getting dressed. Then I could swear I was talking with my mother. Or maybe Nat was? The harder I try to remember the further the memory slips away.
I know we went for coffee with Sally and Jessica before we hit the club. We celebrated with drinks and my mom made an appearance before leaving. Dad didn’t show up, yet again. He has promised the last two years he would, but things have happened to stop him from leaving his new home. You’d think he would come for my twenty-first, but I guess not. Why didn’t he call, though? If he didn’t make my birthday he’d usually at least call, which he didn’t. That much I remember.
Pulling into the station, my heart beats faster knowing I screwed up. I don’t know what I did, but if they think I killed someone, it’s bad. Maybe I just drank too much and stumbled across a wounded animal. It wouldn’t be the first time I came home blood soaked from helping a dog that had been hit by a car. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I realize they must have gotten this all wrong. I stopped on my way home to help a wounded dog that was hit by a car, that’s all. I couldn’t murder someone.
The officers park at the back of the station, pull me out of the car and lead me through the back door.
As we walk past other cops, my panic rises at the judgement on their faces. The guy who handcuffed me leads me straight over to a room and pushes me inside. “Sit! I’ll grab a female to start your processing.”
I sit awkwardly in the only chair in the room, which is extremely hard with my hands still cuffed behind my back. It’s super uncomfortable and I look around me wondering what they need a female officer for.
After five minutes of sitting in this silent room staring at my feet, the door opens and a female officer walks in carrying a bundle of items. The officer who led me in follows her and places even more items on the table before leaving me with the female.
“Ms. Jones, I’m going to need you to stay still while I take some samples. Then you will need to change and your clothes will be taken for evidence.”
“Okay,” I say, glancing at the mirror nervously. There is no way I’m getting changed when someone could be lurking on the other side of the window. Hopefully they may even let me clean up.
“Now, I’m just going to take a few pictures for the records.” I nod as she takes photos, zooming into the worst areas of blood that covers me before walking behind me taking pictures of my dishevelled hair. Once she has the photos she needs, she places the camera on the table, and another officer walks in retrieving it and leaving the room without a word.
She sits before me and holds out a hand. “I’m going to undo your cuffs and cuff one hand to the table while I do what I need to. Do you understand?”
I nod and she goes about cutting bits of blood soaked hair from me, scraping underneath my nails, and getting my fingerprints. When she is done she knocks on the window twice and the cop from before comes back in, taking everything from the room.
“Okay, time to get changed.” She unlocks the cuff tied to the table and moves my hands in front, re-cuffing me. She leads me out of the room and to the back of the station where we take a door off to the right into a small bathroom area.
A shower sits in the corner of the room that also has a bench and a curtain that offers privacy. The female officer unlocks my cuffs, placing them in her pocket. “You need to strip behind the curtain and hand out your clothes. Then you can shower the blood off and get dressed. Before you get fully dressed, though, I have to see if you have any injuries. Do you understand?”
I nod and walk behind the curtain, quickly peeling off my clothes. There are places where the blood has dried to my skin, making me cringe in pain. As far as I can tell I don’t seem to have any injuries on me at all. How could I supposedly murder someone without getting hurt myself?
Once I’m completely naked, I drop to my knees and lift the shower curtain enough to push my clothes out. I turn the water on and watch the water run pink as the blood leaves my body. There’s a soap dispenser on the wall and I push it to get a good lather all over my body.
Five minutes later the cop speaks. “Right, time’s up,” she calls, and the water shuts off. I look down and I’m glad I’m relatively clean. I didn’t even get to wash out my hair properly.
“Uh, is there a towel?” I ask through the shower curtain. A hand appears holding out a plain white towel and I dry off as quickly as I can.
“And do you have underwear or a bra?” I don’t mind going commando, but if they want to look at my body for injuries then I want the important parts covered.
A white sports bra type thing and plain white underwear are the next things passed through and I quickly pull them on. I open the shower curtain and step out, folding the towel and putting it on the end of the bench.
The officer gets to her feet, her eyes scrutinizing. “What injuries do you have?” she asks as she hands me the gray button up shirt and pants, both a little too big for my form.
“I, uh, don’t think I have any. At least not that I could see.”
The officer nods and walks behind me, I assume to assess me for injuries. She walks all the way around and the look on her face is confusion.
She doesn’t say anything, waiting for me to put my new clothes on before handcuffing me again and leading me back towards the room we started in. We stop just to the left of it and she positions me against a wall depicting height measurements while another cop takes pictures of me holding a card with my name on it.
Once that’s done I’m guided back into the room we started in. The difference is, there are now two more chairs set up and two detectives sitting in them. The female cop uncuffs me and places me in the seat opposite them, leaving the room without a word.
They both remain silent and I can’t take it any longer. “Can you please talk? Tell me what on earth is happening? And why do you think I murdered someone?”
The first detective leans forward, his hands on the table and speaks in a smooth voice. “Ms. Jones, we know you killed her. What we don’t understand is why?”
“Killed who?”
The second detective slams her hand against the metal table. “Don’t play games! We know you killed your friend! We just want to know what you did with the body?”
My friend? Oh god. The blood drains from my face and I feel nauseous.
“Who?”
“Ms. Jones, this is getting old. Just tell us what you did with your friend’s body.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know! Please just tell me who it is!” I beg, tears welling in my eyes. Wait, friend? Oh god, no. Is it Sally? Or Jessica? Oh god, please don’t be Natalie.
Both detectives exchange a glance before getting to their feet. The female leans down over the table. “You can only play this game for so long, Valerie. Maybe a day in a cell will give you time to think about what will happen if you don’t cooperate with us.”
The male detective handcuffs me again and pulls me to my feet. I stumble a little from the force of his hold and pull away from him.
“I want a lawyer!” I demand, my voice slightly shaky but firm. I know my rights. They should have offered me a lawyer before interviewing me if they truly thought I was guilty of murder.
The detective grabs my shoulder and directs me out the door, handing me over to one of the cops who first brought me in. I have no idea where his quiet partner is, but this one is the rougher of the two. I kinda wish it was the quiet one or even the female cop. This guy seems to have a problem with me, something he proves when he yanks me by the cuffs down a long hall, stopping at an old phone attached to a wall.
“You get one call to a lawyer, and if I were you, I’d make sure it’s a fucking good one,” the snappy officer says.
I pick up the phone, calling the one person I can. He knows the ins and outs of law, and even though he didn’t show up for my birthday, I know he’ll help me. Three rings later and his gravelly voice answers, obviously having been woken up from sleep.
“Dad, I’m in trouble. The police think I murdered someone. But, I swear I didn’t.”
Shuffling occurs on the other end of the phone, and my dad mutters a curse. “Okay, I’m on my way now, baby girl, just don’t say a word until I get there.”
“Ok, Dad. Please hurry,” I murmur as I hang up the phone.
The cop grabs me and moves me down a corridor and through another door into a room filled with small six-by-eight cells. Each cell contains a bed, a toilet and a small sink, all open with no privacy. At least the curtain in the shower offered what little privacy a girl needs.
The cop shoves me in an empty cell roughly and slams the door shut in my face. He gestures to my hands and I hold them out for him to uncuff. Once free from the cuffs I move to the small bed and sit down, my shoulders slumped in defeat.
The reality of the situation finally sinks in. I’ve been arrested for murder, and it's one of my friends. The only friends I have are Jessica, Sally and Natalie. The thought of any of them being hurt makes the tears fall. What happened and why? Did I blackout and hurt my friend?
I hope Dad gets here soon. I need to know just what happened.