Please be honest in all of your comments and reactions and keep in mind everything I know about police investigations I learned from Law and Order so no it's not going to be totally accurate there. But I hope you enjoy it for what it is. :)
I stood in apartment four twelve looking at the scene before me. A young
woman lay dead on the rug that covered her wooden living room floor. A puddle
of blood surrounded her head and soaked into her hair. Her arms were out to her
sides and one of her hands loosely grasped a gun.
This was the first crime scene I had been called to as a detective. On my
drive over I had felt like a professional from a TV crime show and now I felt
like a scared child wearing a pretend police badge from the dollar store.
“Detective Reynolds,” said a voice behind me.
I jumped slightly.
“Yes, hi,” I stuttered, and
immediately regretted it.
“Hi,” the officer responded,
looking a little confused. “One of the victim’s neighbors is outside in the
hall. The one who found her body. I thought you might want to speak to her.”
“Yes of course,” I answered,
nodding and reaching for the pen and notebook I had put in my jacket pocket.
The officer led me to the hallway where a woman who looked to be about the same
age as the victim, stood crying into a tissue. She looked up as I approached.
“Hi, I am Officer…er…Detective
Reynolds,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Karen Smith,” she whimpered,
reaching out her hand and shaking mine. I cleared my throat.
“I was told you are the one who
found the victim’s body.”
“The victim?” Karen repeated incredulously.
“She had a name. Carrie Wilson.”
“Yes, yes, of course, I’m sorry,”
I apologized, writing the name down at the top of my notebook page. I scribbled
“Karen Smith” under it. Yes, I was definitely a professional.
“Well I was hoping you could give me a
statement about how you found Ms. Wilson and any details you might know about
what happened.”
Karen nodded.
“Can we do it in my apartment? I
hate standing out here in the hall with all these cops staring at me.”
“Of course,” I agreed. We walked
down the hall to apartment four twenty. Karen opened the door and I followed
her inside. She motioned for me to sit on the couch and she sat across from me
in a brown armchair. She pulled a new clean tissue from a box on the table next
to her and curled her feet up under herself.
“So um…can you tell me what
happened? How did you find Ms. Wilson?”
“Carrie and I were best friends,”
Karen said, holding back sobs. “She was going to be in my wedding at the end of
the year. My maid of honor. I was taking some bridal magazines over to her to
get ideas for centerpieces. I knocked on the door but no one answered so I
tried the knob and it was unlocked. When I walked in I saw her lying on the
rug. The gun was in her hand and blood was everywhere. I freaked out and called
the police.”
Karen paused to blow her nose.
“I don’t understand how this
could have happened. Everybody in the building loved Carrie. She was always
sweet and happy. There was no reason for her to kill herself or for anyone else
to kill her.”
I nodded.
“I am very sorry, Miss Smith,” I
said sincerely, writing things down in my notebook.
“You said you were good friends
with the vic-with Ms. Wilson?”
“Yes. Like I said, she was my
maid of honor.”
“Of course. And where were you
yesterday morning when her death occurred?”
Karen looked at me like I was stupid.
“I told you. I was in my
apartment getting ready to take some magazines to her.”
“Yes of course,” I said, nodding
quickly and writing more things down.
“Have you ever done this before?”
she asked.
“No,” I muttered, wishing I
could disappear.
“How about instead of interrogating
me, her best friend, you go out there and find the person who did this?”
“I want that just as much as
you.”
“I doubt it,” Karen said, giving
me an angry look. I tried to counter with a friendly smile but it quickly
faded.
“Thank you for your time, Miss
Smith. I will see myself out.”
Karen didn’t say anything and I stood up from
the couch and walked to the door.
“Have a good day,” I said before
stepping out into the hall.
“Wait, what? Did I say “have a good day” to someone who just lost their best friend?” I thought to myself. I
sighed. At least this was not going to
be a difficult case to crack. All the evidence so far pointed to a suicide.
“Did you get a statement?” the officer I had
spoken to before asked as I walked back down the hall.
“Yes I did. She was a good
friend of the victim. Doesn’t really strike me as a suspect at this time,” I
said, hooking my thumb into my pants pocket and leaning on one leg. I started
to feel like a cool detective again.
“That’s good to hear,” the
officer said, patronizingly. My cool feeling vanished and I stood back upright.
“Yes well, let’s get back to
work,” I said decisively, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape. The
officer followed behind me and I was pretty sure I heard him chuckling.
It had been a little over a week since I walked into the scene in Carrie
Wilson’s apartment and had my terribly awkward interview with Karen Smith. I
was at my desk typing up all the paperwork that came with being a detective
when my favorite officer came up behind me.
“How is everything going? Have the
fingerprints been identified yet?”
The officer nodded and dropped a tan colored folder on my desk.
“The gun was registered to the
victim and all the fingerprints on it belong to her.”
“Well that is pretty open and
shut then I guess,” I said, opening the folder and glancing over the pages.
“Not so much,” the officer
answered.
“What do you mean?”
“We found a shell under the
victim’s couch. The fingerprints on it did not match the ones on the gun. They
are not hers.”
I looked up at him with wide eyes.
“So she didn’t kill herself.” I
blurted. The officer shook his head.
“Not likely. Unless she had
someone come over and load the gun for her. This is most like a homicide.”
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