Chapter 8
405 Words
Chapter 8
THE BRIGHT LIGHTS BLAZED down on me in the interrogation room at the DC police headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW. With knees hugged to my chest, I was rocking back and forth in a flimsy plastic chair, coughing, wheezing, sniffing and muttering under the unblinking stare of Detective Delaney.
In a shaky voice, I said again, ‘Look, I already told you guys a hundred times, I had nothing to do with Sally’s death! I loved her! We shot up together, then I woke up alone. That’s it, end of story. Why the hell would I come INTO the police station looking for her, if I was the one who killed her? That just makes no f*****g sense at all. And then I called you after I found her! Someone killed her and wanted me to find her—that’s why they wrote me the goddamn note!’
‘Yes, we read the note you had in your pocket, so that stacks up,’ responded the impassive Delaney. ‘What else can you tell us you haven’t already?’
‘Look, that’s it!’ I said, exasperated, frustrated and seriously in need of a hit. ‘You’ve had me here for hours, and meanwhile Sally’s killer is roaming around free as a bird! Like I said, the only thing I can tell you is that I heard a big motorbike, like an old Harley, take off down the street just after I found Sally, but whether that’s related, I couldn’t tell you.’
I was losing it now, with tears running down my cheeks and my voice cracking under the strain and starting to whimper. I felt like I had bugs crawling under my skin, eating my flesh from the inside, so was scratching feverishly at myself all over.
‘Jesus Christ, Winter, look at you! I can’t believe what you did to yourself. Yes, you were a shithead, but you were smart, I’ll give you that. Now look at you, a pathetic strung-out junkie who doesn’t know what day it is,’ said Delaney with a sneer as the disappointment and accusation dripped from his voice. ‘You’re right—only a complete i***t would alert us like you have if they had been the killer. Fine, you’re off the hook for now, but don’t leave town. You’re still a person of interest in this case. Now you can go write yourself off somewhere, you absolute waste of a human being.’
And with that, he turned on his heel and stormed out the door.
- Writer
