"You can take a seat here," the officer told me.
"Gee, thanks."
"Someone will be along with you shortly."
"You know you could just let me go."
"Have you been read your rights?" he asked, ignoring my request.
"No," I lied.
After having my rights repeated to me again, the officer left me at the little metal table in a small interrogation room. My hands sat in front of me, cuffed through the metal hoops attached to the top of the table; the legs of which were anchored to the floor. This seemed excessive even for Roberts. My last run-in with him must have truly pissed him off, having me get away must have looked bad for him. While sitting on the hard chair, I envisioned myself as one of New York City's most wanted. A silly grin played on my lips recalling the last time we did this. How humiliating that must have been for him to lose me in the police station itself.
The soft drone echoed in the otherwise quiet room. The noise came from the heat being blown in from the small air vent up on the ceiling. The warmth from it, the single welcoming thing here. The walls were painted a light peach color, I guessed that it was meant to soothe the mind; being a more pleasant tone than the pea green colored room from last time I was here. The tiled floor, table, chairs, and trim remained less inviting with the slate gray paint. The door had no window. It stood right beside a huge mirror that adorned half the wall, where there would be someone watching on the other side.
While waiting for someone to come, I stretched out my legs a bit, my tattered combat styled Converse sneakers squeaked loudly on the floor. The thoughts to remember to make the noise whenever Roberts talked floated into my mind, a smile played over my lips at how annoying it would be.
My legs appeared lengthy in the tight jeans and gave the illusion of me being taller. However, the niceness soon dissipated upon eyeing the discolored spots. The black material was stained with dirt, blood, and other things from the alley that one didn't want to think about. I was a little nervous at first, but they couldn't prove anything, at least not tonight anyway. Unless, of course, they got my DNA off of the two who weren't burnt beyond recognition. That idea had me a little nervous.
The door handle moved and Roberts entered with my favorite beverage in one hand. In the other were two egg salad sandwiches and a folder was tucked up under his arm. At the same time he strode toward the table, he tried an attempt at a smile. The gesture appeared natural and that put me more on edge. We went down this road before and the man always made sure to feed me every time he dragged me in here.
Most of those visits were due to petty crimes, besides a girl needed to survive somehow. I was known to do a little shoplifting here and there. Being pretty decent at pilfering beats the alternatives. After he settled into his chair, he opened the can of pop and set the drink down in front of me along with one of the sandwiches. Acting so likable made it easy for me to dislike him even more.
"Sorry to take so long," He said
"I'm not going to be here half the damn night am I?"
"You'll be here until we finish the interviews."
"In that case, I heard nothing, saw nothing, and did nothing," I told him knowing it wouldn't be as easy as that.
"You know that's not how this works, why don't you eat, you look starved."
Eyeing the detective warily and the food hungrily whiles I waited, not wanting to take the bait too soon or appear too eager to get my hands on the sandwich. Like most street folks, nourishment came wherever you could acquire some. The sight and aromas of the bread filled with egg salad made my empty stomach growl loudly in its impatience, the traitor it turned out to be.
Roberts's gaze shifted from the food to my black eye before venturing on to my torn clothes. A furrow formed on his forehead as he scowled. His poker face slipped. He tore a bite out of the sandwich, not taking his eyes off me. Somehow he made the action appear sinister, as if his next meal would be me. The notion occurred to me, I may be a little pissed about how fast he caught me. Given my overly snide comments, even if those thoughts were kept to myself so far.
"Go ahead Mouse, eat. We have time to wait to ask you some questions," he said after swallowing his mouthful of food. Great, I thought, now he's telling me when to eat, who does he think he is, my mother?
It seemed that the lack of food made me crazier than normal. The hunger won and I chose to dive on the helpless meal with the ferocity of a starving lioness. The snack disappeared in a matter of a few bites. Each morsel tasted as if it were a gourmet meal. I relished every lick of the remnants of the egg mixture from my fingers before taking a gulp of soda to wash the food down. It was quite some time since my last meal came from anything other than a soup kitchen. The grumbling would settle for a little while; however, my guts churned. Roberts sat there in silence and eyed me over for a moment. I had already established that he hated not solving a case, which meant me keeping my less honest activities toned down for a while.
He leaned in; his breath tainted with eggs and onions, an aromatic sweet and smoky scent mingled with it. I reclined back in the chair; my secured arms relaxed in front of me with my legs crossed under the table. My attempt to appear cool and collected in front of him.
"We'll begin in a few moments; Detective Smith will be joining us."
"Oh how sweet, you got yourself a little friend."
He raised an eyebrow at me but didn't appear to let my comment bother him. Roberts seemed to go through a lot of partners. This was the third one since he brought me in for questioning on various other incidents over the last six months. It made me wonder why.
Within a few moments, a younger man came in, he acted even more awkward in here than I did. He grabbed the empty chair and slid it next to Roberts before sitting down.
"Sorry about that, traffic is nuts out there."
"Must be your first day in the Big Apple," I stated without waiting for an introduction.
"This is Detective Smith," Roberts stated, "He will start the interview."
I shrugged and shifted a bit in my chair, trying to let my indifference show through.
"Can you state your name for the record," Smith asked.
"Mouse."
"No, your full name ma'am,"
"My full name is Mouse; I can spell that out if it's too difficult for you."
"That's not a real name." he glanced over at Roberts, who sat there with a grin.
"Well, it's the one I'm giving you."
"We need your actual name ma'am."
"Am I being charged?"
"Well, not at the moment."
"Then for the time being the name is Mouse."
"Listen, ma'am, this isn't a game, people died tonight."
"Well, I didn't think you brought me in to play checkers."
Detective Smith was clearly getting frustrated already. Small fry, I thought. Roberts reached over and tapped him on the arm.
"Mind if I have a go?" he asked Smith.
"Sure Anthony."
Roberts shifted his position in his chair to sit square on to me.
"Why did you run?" He made it a point to rest his hands on the folder.
"I needed the exercise."
"Odd time of night to be out for a run."
"Well, I like the darkness. Fewer people to run into," he scowled at me; presumably, he didn't care for my answer.
"Tell me about the alley?"
"Well, that's a narrow passage between two buildings, anything else?"
Instantly regretting my sarcasm as he opened the file folder, bringing his posse of facts out. He didn't beat around the bush, unlike his younger partner.
"We found this coat in the alley," he pushed a photo in front of me of my destroyed jacket.
"So."
"You wore it the last interview we had about the warehouse fire."
"Yeah, caused nobody else in a city of millions could own a coat like mine."
"It's the same size, same cannabis pin, in the exact same location as this image," he shoved another picture in front of me as he continued. "We took this one of you from the interrogation room surveillance camera."
"Just out sightseeing."
"Come on, sightseeing in a dead-end alley?" He spread his pile of facts out in front of me. I lined them out in front of me by the evidence numbers on each one. My attention drew to Roberts's new partner as he jotted some notes into his pad. Wondering how my need for tidiness would be of any importance to him.
The pictures of my duffle bag, a tuft of my hair that got yanked out told some of the facts. The image of a knife beside an evidence marker caught my attention, instantly I recognized the blade.
Already having a street rep, the jerks figured they found easy prey when they chased me into that alley. The scum bags assumed what I carried in my bag belonged to one of the few family run places that hired me. They told me I would be as good as dead if I didn't give up the stuff. Having refused, they smacked me around a bit and at knifepoint, tried to find out the whereabouts of my duffle bag – their first mistake.
Weird things happen when I lose my temper.
Trying to focus on my anger left me vulnerable and at best able to stop a few blows. This not being my first run-in with the gang, however, every other time I managed to outrun them before they get their hands on me. The realities of street life included getting mugged once in a while, but that fact never made it all right. Although most times one could do little about it, other than to not fight back and let them take what they wanted. It's not my fault they picked the wrong person to mug, I thought.
When my inner rage finally erupted to the surface, everything turned so surreal. As if locked in slow motion, my waking world unfolded into a hellish dream. The punks fled for the only exit out of the alley. One was engulfed in fire and the other three made for the safety of a Buick – their second mistake.
Heat rolled off me with uncontained rage. The paint blistered and peeled as the tires dissolved, exposing the rims. The three men inside screamed as they started to cook. Two of them managed to slip out of the vehicle. The flames engulfed the Buick along with the one wretch left inside. The two attempted to flee, during which time my control of the wrath inside me faltered. They'd managed to run about ten feet before the cars exploded. The fourth man who'd been caught within the fireball perished quickly. Several nearby buildings suffered extreme damage as well, cooking a few pigeons roosting on a window ledge. My eyes watered up thinking of those poor birds.
The hard slap of a hand on the metal table snapped me back from my thoughts. Roberts and Smith stared at me expectantly.
"Care to explain these," Roberts demanded as he tapped the photos, drawing my attention back down to the table.
"Funny thing about that, see I crashed out in the alley, musta got caught up in some broken boards, that's when I tore myself up."
Every muscle in my face tensed up, fighting with tears of anger at what in fact happened. I didn't want Roberts to detect any weakness in me, hating when people thought less of me because of my dainty size. Getting beat up a lot was not my idea of a good time. Smith appeared more interested in Roberts's reactions than mine as he watched him from the corner of his eye.
Roberts scrutinized me, his eyes reflected his disbelieve; apparently, this time I hadn't been a proficient enough liar. His jaw twitched as he stared at my face for a second time with his piercing eyes.
"Mouse...don't try to spin a line on me, what actually happened," he demanded as he tapped on another photo resting on the table.
The images of the burnt blob fused with the sidewalk were not even recognizable as once being a human. He was one of the men who stood back and suggested to his buddies to cut me up after they found my stash. I leveled my eyes at Roberts, not controlling my emotions at all. I thought for a moment about the answers before I came up with a sarcastic and crass one.
"Someone overcook a roast?" hoping he picked up on the hatefulness in my voice.
"Do I need to bring a forensic tech to take evidence from you?" He didn't seem to plan on backing off.
"Not without a warrant you're not." The fear sank in at the idea that he might, in fact, do precisely that.
Even if they found traces on me or my clothes from the four dead guys it would prove that we fought but nothing else. Fuckers should have left me alone, but how would the forensics team be able to explain that they simply ignited into fireballs because of my temper. Cops don't care for mysteries and Roberts never left anything unsolved.
He stared long and hard at me and the room became awkwardly quiet. The man had to understand horrible things happened to people who lived on the streets. This case held no exceptions and I never wanted those things to happen to me. Breaking eye contact with Roberts, my gaze drifted down to the opening of the can of pop. I wanted nothing more than to be able to crawl inside the dark recesses and hide from my own memories, the ironically few there in fact were.
About six months ago I awoke in a park with no memories at all. It made life difficult to say the least. A bag lady took me in and the street folks called me Mouse ever since. Instinct told me to stay clear of anything resembling the Law and I did my best to listen. Roberts, however, might not let up this time until he got the truth.
Sitting across from the detective, I wanted to curl in on myself. The photos that were displayed in front of me were yanked back and stuffed into the folder.
"What happened, don't give me a fabricated story about broken boards or bottles either."
I swallowed hard at the flash of memory from what happened earlier and my hands shook. Tears broke from my eyes and the more I fought to contain them the more they poured down my cheeks. Being a freak of nature saved me, if not for that I would be a victim of more than an assault and battery. In which case this interview would be done in a hospital instead of the interrogation room...but somehow I ended up being the bad girl in this story.
"Mouse...would you prefer a female officer talk with you?" his voice shifted to soft and kind. Wonderful, I'm guilty and a victim now.
"I prefer to leave; I didn't see anything other than a fireball go off and went about my own damn business." Unable to gaze up when saying it as I busied myself using my shoulder to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
With steely resolve, I tore my gaze away from the table and locked glares with his. I stared at him for a few long drawn out moments and tried to assess what his next move would be.
"Do you want a female officer to talk to about this?" he reworded the same question, his eyes reading my body language wrong. My current state would make it easy for him to assume they did something to me, he just didn't know exactly what yet.
"I want a lawyer," I screamed and that ended the conversation. I panicked, being able to handle the hard-ass detective might be one thing but dealing with a caring, fatherly Roberts proved to be another.