3. Cassie #2
This is the most real this has felt since the second before I pulled the trigger.
Licking my lips, I glance back at the cop distrustfully. “I’m not under arrest.”
“You’re not under arrest,” he confirms. “Standard transportation. See”—he nods at my wrists—“no cuffs. And if you were being arrested, I’d have to read you your rights.”
That’s true. I know that from TV.
He gestures toward the back seat, and reluctantly, I slide in. The seat is hard, the space claustrophobic. The cop closes the door, and I know it wouldn’t open if I tried.
Trapped.
I’m trapped.
The thought makes me feel ill, but I try to suppress it. I knew I’d end up here, but it’s like I told Tor—I never planned past pulling the trigger.
I know last summer Tim never had to sit in the back of a cop car. They let him bring himself down to the station. I guess rape wasn’t a serious enough offense to warrant a car ride.
The ride there is quiet, just the sounds of the police radio breaking up the silence every now and then.
I have a sense of déjà vu when we pull into the police station. I remember walking through those doors under very different circumstances last summer.
He doesn’t bring me through the front like I expect, though. He brings me to a different entrance on the side of the building, an ugly brown door with a square window surrounded by painted cement block. A blue sign reads, “No weapons allowed.”
I crack a smile. That doesn’t seem right, but I guess they mean the people like me aren’t allowed to have them.
It occurs to me, then, that coming in through the more secure side door with a cop close by, I’m not a member of the public right now. I’m on the other side.
My lips feel dry. I glance back at the cop. “I forgot my water at the house. Am I allowed to have water?”
He nods, looking ahead. “We’ll get you some water once we get you set up in a room.”
“Okay.”
The cop opens the door and gestures for me to enter. I do, stiffening when the heavy door closes behind me. It feels like a loss of freedom, but it’s a phantom feeling. I don’t have freedom anymore. Not right now.
And this could be the rest of my life.
“Right this way,” the cop says.
The hallway feels sterile with ugly fluorescent lighting overhead. He leads me to a waiting area and tells me to have a seat.
“We’ll get you processed here shortly,” he tells me. “For now, sit tight. No phone usage. If you have your ID in your purse, you can go ahead and get that ready. This process tends to take a while, so anything to speed it along.”
He offers another mild smile, but I don’t believe it, and I’m getting really tired, so I don’t bother giving one back.
This sucks.
I wonder if Tor is being brought in, or if he’ll be brought in the same way. Obviously, they want to keep us separated, but I wonder if I’ll at least see him come down the hallway.
I wonder if it means anything that they brought me in first.
Yeah, I’m the one with the motive (and also the murderer, to be fair), but he is my alibi, so I would think we’re in the same boat.
Only I know that’s probably not true.
If shit gets real and Tor changes his mind, he could probably still get out of this by turning me in.
There’s a clock on the wall in this area, so I know it’s forty minutes before they finally process me. It’s just basic stuff—name, address, date of birth. They snap a picture of me, which takes me by surprise, and paperclip it to a manila folder. That doesn’t feel great. I guess I have a file now.
“Have a seat, hon,” the lady says, like it’s just another day at the DMV. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
I return to my seat.
“Shortly” is a lie. It’s a much longer wait, but finally, the cop who brought me in returns to transfer me to a room for more privacy.
I’m directed to sit on another chair, and this is the least comfortable of them all.
After what must be another twenty minutes, I have the absent thought that people probably confess to crimes just because they don’t want to sit in this thing anymore.
The room is cold, too.
And I’m thirsty.
The cop never did get me any water.
I’m disappointed in the interrogation room—not just because of the chair or the lack of water, but because it looks nothing like what I imagined.
There’s no exposed light bulb hanging over my head, no dented cold steel table or concrete floor.
It’s just a basic-ass room with an ugly linoleum floor and a table shoved in the corner.
There are two more chairs on the other side of the table.
They look like mine. I guess they torture the questioning detective, too.
I wonder if I should have called the lawyer myself. Tor said he was going to call his family lawyer, but I hate that guy. Terry Howard is a colossal asshole.
But I guess when the colossal asshole is on your side, you don’t mind so much.
Will he really be on my side, though?
I don’t even understand why Tor is doing this for me, so there’s no way his family will. They’ll probably instruct their lawyer to make sure their only remaining son isn’t implicated, but to throw my ass to the wolves.
Especially because they’ll be convinced I did it.
I’m the only person in this town who would.
Morally, I think it’s pretty dodgy to let them pay for my legal defense when I murdered their son, but morally, I think they’re pretty dodgy, too.
That’s probably not how this works, anyway.
I’m sure I’ll still have to pay for it, and there’s no way I can afford to.
I should probably just call my own shitty lawyer. Yes, he looks like he got his suit at the tent store, and worked my case like he got his degree out of a vending machine, but even he is out of my budget. Terry Howard is a shark—I would never be able to afford him.
If I ever see another human again, I guess I’ll ask to call my lawyer.
If they leave me in here much longer, I’m going to ask for a soccer ball so I can paint a face on it and start calling it Wilson.