Her partner was Officer Ducard, who stood with his arms folded over his chest, listening but letting his partner ask most of the questions.
I didn’t have to wait longer than ten minutes before the officers came out to meet me.
Some of the others in the waiting room glared at me as they took me away.
I guess being a witness to murder was a higher priority than someone who only needed to report a missing phone.
They brought me into this interrogation room but at no point did they interrogate me.
They let me tell my story and never interrupted except to clarify certain details.
I told them everything, beginning with setting my eyes on Iav in the club and how we proceeded to my apartment.
I was a little embarrassed when I came to the sex part but the cops didn’t push me to go into intricate detail.
I felt relieved I wasn’t the only one who had to know this damn story.
At least now I wasn’t alone and they could help me get to the bottom of it.
Better yet, they could take the entire thing off my hands and deal with it themselves.
Rodriquez and Ducard shared a look before turning back to me.
No doubt they were used to hearing strange stories but surely even they had to be surprised by the turn of events?
Rodriquez bit her bottom lip and ran a finger over the chain that held the badge around her neck.
She looked at me carefully before leaning forward.
“Who put you up to this?”
It took a moment for her question to permeate.
“Put me up to what?”
“This. Your story.”
“No one. I just told you everything that happened.”
Rodriquez turned to her partner, her chair squeaking beneath her hefty weight.
“This has your fingerprints all over it, Ducard. I refuse to be punked again.”
Ducard raised his hands in surrender.
“I swear, this has nothing to do with me. But whoever came up with it sure has got a vivid imagination.”
I peered between the two of them, my shining knights in white armor, and the blood drained from my face.
My hands were pressed to the tabletop and turned so hot and sweaty they left marks when I removed them.
“Are you telling me you don’t believe me?”
Rodriquez turned back to me, her eyebrow cocked.
“I believed every word… until you got to the part about his twin showing up. And you lost me completely when you brought up the light gun.”
“Plasma pistol,” I said quietly.
“Right. Plasma pistol. I haven’t heard a story that crazy since Ducard put a guy up to pretending he was Elvis Presley reincarnated.”
Officer Ducard shrugged.
“What can I say?” he said, spreading his hands. “I’m a sucker for the classics.”
His body shook and he grunted.
It was meant to be a laugh but he snatched it at the last moment and suppressed it.
Now I realized why he folded his arms over his chest the entire time I told my story.
He was struggling to keep the laughter inside.
He didn’t believe me.
Neither of them did.
I told them everything, every last detail.
And they didn’t believe me?
Rodriquez leaned over and turned off the recorder.
“I think we’ve heard enough. I’ll keep it as a record for how lame you are, Ducard.”
She shot her partner a look that promised retribution later.
“I told you,” Ducard said. “I didn’t put her up to this. I’ve never met her before.”
I stood up, so quickly I knocked my chair over.
“I came here to tell you about a murder I witnessed,” I said, my voice cold as ice. “It happened in my bedroom. I was about to have sex with a guy from the club when another guy—who looked exactly like him—shot him three times. It looked like some sort of futuristic gun. If you go to my room and check out the holes in his body, maybe you can tell me what sort of weapon it was. I got out of there as quickly as I could and I came right here. And you think I made all this up?”
Rodriquez shot Ducard a look.
The one he returned was sober.
He no longer struggled to keep his mirth in his chest.
It’d dried up completely.
“Calm down,” Rodriquez said. “Nobody’s saying something didn’t happen to you tonight—”
“It sure sounds like you don’t believe what I’m saying,” I spat.
“It’s an… unusual story,” Rodriquez said. “But look, I promise we’ll look into it. Okay?”
Maybe she said that just to humor me but I didn’t care.
The moment they stepped in my bedroom they would see something had happened there.
They would see the body and the blood.
So long as they helped me, I didn’t care they didn’t believe me.
Rodriquez took a notepad from her pocket and read my address back to me.
“Go to my room and you’ll see I’m not lying,” I said.
Rodriquez looked at me and a frown formed on her brow as if she couldn’t believe she was actually doing this.
“We’ll check it out. In the meantime, is there someone you would like us to call? Somewhere you would feel safe?”
“I can wait here. And I need your phone. I want to call my friends and let them know what’s going on—”
A shout erupted from down the hall outside.
“Don’t worry about that,” Officer Ducard said. “Sometimes tempers flare and criminals—”
Bang!
His eyes snapped to Rodriquez’s and something passed between them that I couldn’t read.
“Wait,” I said. “Was that a gunshot?”
“Stay here,” Officer Ducard said.
He unclipped his pistol and placed his hand on it as he approached the door.
He cracked it open and peered outside.
He raised a hand and caught someone racing down the corridor.
“Hey, Johnson. Want to tell me what’s going on out there? Somebody accidentally fire their pistol?”
“There’s nothing accidental about it,” a deep voice responded. “Someone came into the station and drew a weapon.”
Ducard hissed through his teeth.
“They opened fire on us? First they try to defund us, now this… Thanks, Johnson.”
Ducard turned back to his partner.
“Just some loon venting a little anger—”
Bang! Bang!
More shouts from angry throats.
Then a sound I thought I would never hear again.
A high-pitched whining noise like feedback from a speaker.
The
