Fuck it all.
“If it’s alright, sir, I’d like to start walking him back,” the arresting officer said. “Get back to my car, where it’s warm, get him to the station so everyone can do what needs to be done here.”
“Yeah,” an older man said. “Take some with you. Thomas? Max? Eyes on him, and on each other. Talk to the chief when you get back, I’ll phone in whatever we’ve got soon. Be good.”
Be good? What happened when they were bad?
They started me walking. Here and there, the ground dipped, but the snow didn’t, causing me to sink in to knee-depth. We forged on as a group, moving in a straight line.
After the brighter flashlights, the woods seemed particularly dark.
“Murdering a kid? That’s about as fucked as it gets,” one of the other officers said, after we were out of earshot.
“There are other possibilities that are more fucked,” the arresting officer said. “But I’m not ruling that out, either.”
I didn’t rise to the bait.
I did, however, note Evan standing nearby. Eyes wide.
The going got a little rougher, and I wasn’t talking, so they shifted focus towards moving forward and keeping a firm grip on me so I wouldn’t tip over.
I saw Evan flicker. He stopped in his tracks.
I moved on, and Evan remained in the forest.
We were taking a much different route out than the one I’d taken in. We descended a steep hill, and reached a road where police cars were lined up. Very possibly parked in Evan’s neighborhood.
They opened the car door, and I flinched at the contact of hand on head, as the officer pushed me down, simultaneously protecting my head from hitting the top of the car.
I thought I could maybe see Evan standing at the top of the hill, watching me go.
■
I’d been booked, everything entered in the database. Phone calls had been made made, my free legal counsel was en route.
The room was smaller than those shown on television. A desk, like a broader version of a student’s desk, took up the majority of the long, narrow room. A beaten-up metal folding chair was in one corner. The other chairs looked far more comfortable, padded and all.
I wasn’t surprised when they uncuffed me and indicated the metal chair, seating me so I faced the door. It was cramped, claustrophobic, which I assumed was the point. I could lean left, and my shoulder would touch the one-way mirror to my left. Lean right, and the front of the long desk would dig into my elbow.
One officer sat to my right, the other situated across from me. I was cornered, quite literally, back and shoulders to walls, effectively surrounded. The mirror made it feel like there were more people to my left.
I looked to confirm, and realized there were people in that room. Didn’t help the ‘surrounded’ feeling.
It was the one that faced me that was apparently going to do the talking. He looked young, no older than thirty-five, maybe as young as thirty. He had dark, curly hair that was cut to an almost crew-cut length. He left the door open, standing by his chair as he took his time removing his jacket, shaking loose moisture from his gloves before putting them in his jacket pockets, and hanging it up on the back of the door.
Standing over me. A broad shouldered, older guy, in better shape than I was. Not that I was in bad shape, fitness-wise, but he was in better shape.
He shut the door, then took his seat, facing me head on.
“I gotta ask, what the fuck happened to you?” he asked.
I just dealt with an imp and a giant goblin beast thing.
I wanted to make a crack, to say something like, ‘I got arrested and brought here’, but I didn’t want to be one of the idiots on TV who got reamed out by their lawyer for trying to be smart or help themselves.
“Is it just poor quality of life?” he asked. “You said you were a specialized handyman, right?”
“Right now, I’m nothing more than a guy waiting for his lawyer,” I said.
“Fair enough,’ he said. “I can do most of the talking. I wonder what a ‘specialized handyman’ does. Something that involves screws, a fancy axe with wire around the handle. What else? See, I’m trying to put the pieces together, figure out who I’m going to be talking with for the next little while. You called one of the freebie lawyers, right? I guarantee you it’s going to be a while, he or she might even have to see someone else before they get around to you.”
There was nowhere good to look. If I met his eyes, I felt belligerent. if I looked at the floor, I looked guilty. Looking left or right meant I was, indirectly or not, looking at the other cops.
I shut my eyes, instead, shifting position until I could lean my head against the wall behind me.
“Hey,” the officer said. “Hey!”
Shouting just a bit louder than was necessary or expected.
Sending me straight into that ‘fight or flight’ mode, where I was ready for danger, ready to react and move.
He hadn’t moved. He was smiling, as if he was the friendliest guy in the world.
“Now’s not the time for that,” he said. “Looks pretty fucking bad if you’re so relaxed you can fall asleep, with murder charges pending. Looks sociopathic.”
My heart still pounded.
I could bind goblinoid monsters, but people could still put me on edge.
“What else am I supposed to do while I wait for my lawyer?” I asked.
“You can chat with us,” he said.
I gave him a look.
“Or whatever,” he said. “Listen while we talk. Twiddle your thumbs. Think up a good story, if you need one. Do all three at the same time. But you don’t want to go to sleep when you’ve been accused of murdering and maybe doing worse to a damn kid.”
The shift of topic, the reminder of Evan, it wasn’t helping. I was tired, I was on edge, and I didn’t have any ready answers. He kept forcing me to shift mental gears.
Just like the cramped space was designed to make me feel the pressure.
Problem was, this wasn’t a situation where piecing A, B, and C together relieved any of that pressure.
He spoke, “I do some reno work myself, when I have time. But time’s hard to come by, you know?”
When I didn’t answer, the other cop murmured, “Oh yeah, definitely.”
The other cop was a bigger, balding guy, busy taking notes, a pen scribbling away on a pad of paper, constantly moving at the corner of my field of view.
“I like working with my hands. Frees my mind to do other stuff,” the interrogator said. “I swear a lot, get frustrated, but I usually come away feeling accomplished, like I did a good job, and feeling refreshed. As if it’s meditation, but without the yoga bullshit, you know?”