Was it just a dream? I wonder. Waking up, the crime scene gone, my visit to the police precinct, the doctor, the pills, the radio? I sigh. Yes, I decide, it must have been a dream. The voices are the voices of police officers. It is Sunday morning.
My eyes open finally, thick and crusty. I look up at a ceiling that is not my own.
Fully alert in an instant, my eyes wide now, I look around me, not believing what I am seeing, not understanding.
I am in a police cell.
The white walls seem to crowd me, reflective paint disorientating me further. I am on a steel cot, bolted to the floor. A metal door bars my exit, thick steel with a long horizontal slot so officers can check in on their prisoners.
I am a prisoner.
I am fully clothed, but they are not the clothes I was wearing last night.
What happened?
I play the events back through my mind. Driving home, the radio contest, speaking to Amy, my call to Artie, taking the pills, drinking, Artie calling me back. Passing out in my bedroom.
Did I get back up, get changed, leave the house without realizing? I remember the bottle of gin. Did I do something stupid?
I am off the cot now, banging on the steel door. Moments later I see the grey eyes of a middle-aged man peering through at me.
“Yes ma’am?” the eyes say.
“What charge am I being held on?” I demand.
The eyes look at me strangely; the man beyond the door is surprised. “You were arrested last night on the charge of aiding and abetting a homicide, ma’am.”
My blood turns to ice. Homicide? “Whose?” I ask quickly.
“We don’t know the victim’s name yet, but it’s the young girl found on your farm last night.”
Last night? My mind works frantically, trying to calculate time-frames, figure out what’s going on. I was right about the day, at least; it is Sunday morning, the day after the girl died. My second Thursday must have been a dream, a product of an overactive imagination.
Which means I was arrested on Saturday night; after the party, after I found the body. It was just last night, but it suddenly seems so long ago. I struggle to remember what happened.
I went to bed, struggled to sleep, took the pills the EMTs gave me, drank some gin, finally managed to drift off. And then?
Nothing. My mind is a blank. But presumably I must have done or said something to incriminate myself? I see myself stalking down the stairs, throwing the front door open, announcing my guilt to the gathered officers. It was me! And yet, even with no memories to the contrary, I know that this can’t be true. It is not true.
“How –”
“Save your questions please ma’am.” The eyes cut me off brusquely. “Captain De Nares has been waiting for you to wake up. He wants to carry on your interview. I’ll have breakfast brought to you.”
The eyes disappear behind the sliding bar, leaving me alone once more.
Captain De Nares? I remember the name now, printed on the card given to me by the ABI officer last night. Yes. Captain De Nares.
My mind is so full, so tired, so confused; I think it will explode, and my hands grip my throbbing temples.
I sigh and sink back onto the metal cot. Whatever memories are in my head, they are as well protected as this cell. I’m not going to get any answers there.
And so I sit back, and wait for my interview.
“Case number two-four-six-alpha, second interview of suspect Jessica Elaine Hudson, held under the charge of aiding and abetting in the unlawful homicide of unknown female victim. Interview led by Captain Georges De Nares of the Alaska State Troopers, Bureau of Investigation, Major Crimes Division. Lieutenant Peter Michaels of the ABI, and Palmer Police Department Chief of Police Ben Taylor also present.”
I watch from my collapsible metal chair at the man sat opposite me, reading off a crib sheet into the digital recorder on the table between us. Tanned skin, thick wavy hair, slim runner’s body making him look younger than he probably is. I wonder if that is a help or a hindrance in his line of work.
In the corner of the room, Ben sits somewhat nervously, his large frame looking faintly ridiculous in the small chair. I can see he is uncomfortable with being here at all, and I wonder why.
“Okay Ms. Hudson, let’s start from the beginning once more.” The man’s tone is smooth, easy. “We didn’t really make much headway last night, so perhaps the morning will give us all a fresh perspective. Would you like some coffee?”
“Please,” I say, nodding my head. Caffeine would be good. I have a million questions swimming around my head, and I feel the indignant rage of being imprisoned bubbling away just under the surface, but I keep a lid on it, knowing that it would do more harm than good to display it. They evidently already think I am involved in the girl’s death in some way, and I don’t want to appear aggressive. Added to which, I still have no idea how I came to be here; perhaps there is a reason, after all.
De Nares rises and steps out of the room for coffee, leaving me and Ben sitting awkwardly; he avoiding eye contact, me nervously drumming my fingers on the Formica table-top. I realize what I’m doing and stop immediately; it won’t help my case to look nervous, I know that much.
De Nares returns, puts two cups down on the table and looks at me, smiling. Thirty seconds later he is still smiling, face otherwise unmoving. He wants me to speak first. Instead, I take the cup of coffee and start sipping at it. The harsh lights above start to hurt my head.
“So tell us again what happened,” De Nares says finally.
I put the cup down, nod my head. “Okay. I was at the party at Arthur Jenkins’ house, that can be verified by a lot of people. I left about eleven, half eleven, and –”
“Sorry Ms. Hudson, I mean tell us what happened before last night.”
“Before?” I ask, confused once more.
De Nares looks at me kindly. “Why don’t we start last Thursday? You came into the police precinct, demanded to know what was going on. You told Chief Taylor about the death of a young girl on your farm.”
I am shocked.
Beyond shocked.
I came in last Thursday? But didn’t that just happen in a dream?
My mind starts to disintegrate as I fail to compute this new revelation, and De Nares continues, oblivious to the storm raging within me.
“Evidence item Twelve-B, recording of statement made by suspect last Thursday, October ninth, to Chief Taylor of the Palmer PD.” De Nares places a mini-recorder on the desk, presses Play.
“The party hasn’t happened yet. It isn’t until October eleventh, this Saturday night . . . two days away. It’s not real. What you claim to have seen; it can’t be real.” It is Ben’s voice, the recording he made last Thursday, the Thursday I thought I’d dreamed. I know my voice will be next, and I prepare myself.
“But it is real. I saw her, I held her head in my lap as she died.”
“Who is this girl?”
“I don’t know!”
“Can you describe her?”
“She was young, a teenager. Dark hair, but some had been torn out. Pale skin, cut and bruised all over. She was naked, completely naked . . . She had green eyes, I think. About the same height as me, probably between five feet two and five feet four. She had . . . ligature marks on her wrists, on her ankles, around her neck. Burns, maybe from cigarettes. Possible bite marks. Her teeth and nose were broken . . .”
I hear my tears on the recorder, and De Nares clicks it off. He has made his point, and at least now I know why I am here.
“So could you please explain to us,” De Nares says in his smooth, calming tone, “how it is you described the victim – exactly as she appeared when we saw her on Saturday night – two and a half days before the event?”
And there it is, as clear as day; I am being held because I reported a crime which hadn’t happened yet, my description suggesting foreknowledge that such a crime was going to occur, which further suggests that I was directly involved in some way.
Which also means, even more disturbingly, that last Thursday was not imagined, I did not dream it; it really happened. But what does that mean?
“Why is it being treated as a homicide?” I ask next, trying to think professionally, keep all the other things at bay, unwilling to face them.
“Cause of death was confirmed as relating to injuries sustained over the course of several days, injuries inflicted by other parties. Specifically, complications from a compounded skull fracture, from what appears to be a blow to the head with a heavy blunt instrument such as a ball hammer.” De Nares doesn’t change his expression as he speaks, but his eyes twinkle reflexively; he wants to get a reaction from me.
“Other parties?” I ask. “How do you know more than one person is involved?”
“The victim was raped,” De Nares says matter-of-factly. “Multiple times. Vaginally and anally. It was a mess down there.” He says this last with only vaguely concealed disgust, and I finally realize that this man hates me. He is doing his best to be professional, but he thinks I know something, and he hates me for it. “We found traces of semen in the victim’s throat and vagina, and inside and around the anus. Possibly from more than one man. So it’s clear that there were others involved.”
He pauses, sips from his coffee cup; waiting again, hoping I will speak, fill in some of the gaps. Yet how can I? What can I say? I don’t know anything.
But I am hit again with the horror of what happened to that poor girl. I will never even know what atrocities she was subjected to, what kind of living hell she was forced to endure. Only the girl knew how it felt.
May God be with you.
I choke back my sobs, realizing that De Nares is speaking again. “What can you tell me about the vulva, Ms. Hudson?”
“Excuse me?”
“The vulva. Why was it closed like that?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
De Nares keeps his gaze level as he throws half a dozen large photographs down onto the table-top. “I am showing Ms. Hudson photographs of the victim taken at autopsy,” he says for the recorder.
My blood turns to ice once more as I look at the pictures.
The girl’s pale, naked body is lying on a metal examination table, a hunk of meat to be dissected and examined. There is no life in her; none at all.
The cuts and bruises seem worse in these pictures, drawn out by the bright lights of the autopsy lab, the dark of night no longer covering them. I want to be sick.
I see the close-ups, photographs taken of the poor girl below the waist. I gasp involuntarily; her vulva has been sewn closed, the labial lips pierced crudely and tightened together with thick black thread.
De Nares watches for my reaction. “What purpose is being served by this?” he asks. “Why was it sewn closed?” He leans across the table, and I can feel the intensity of his gaze, eyes boring into me, and I feel myself coming undone, unable to speak. I can only look in horror at the pictures, listen to the captain’s stark accusations. “Did you sew it?” he asks gently.
I see Ben over in the corner, quiet and uncomfortable. I still cannot speak. De Nares edges closer, his tone changing. “Did you watch them fuck her? Did you watch them fuck her, and then shove a fat needle through her lips, sewing her up closed? Watch as they fucked her again anyway?” His voice is strident now, rising in pitch.
“I . . . I . . .” But I cannot get any more words out.
“You know something!” De Nares shouts, banging his hand down on the table. “Look at the pictures! Look at them! You know who did this, don’t you? Who are they?” He hits the table again, eyes boring into me. “Who are they?” he demands again, almost a scream.
I shake my head, at a loss to explain any of it. Then Lieutenant Michaels puts a hand on De Nares’ shoulder. The captain nods, rises, then notes the time for the recorder and turns it off; he leaves the room with the other man. Ben looks down at his shoes.
I gather my breath, struggling to come to terms with what I’ve heard. The girl was raped and then sewn closed? What sort of person would do that? And why? It doesn’t make any sense. And that’s not even to mention the other issue – how did I know on Thursday what was going to happen on Saturday? Because that is what seems to have happened, if you remove all known physical laws from the equation. Either I went through the days up to the event, then travelled back in time; or else I experienced some sort of incredibly lengthy, detailed psychic vision.
I try and ignore the other possibility – that I am hallucinating the whole thing, that I never recovered from the gunshot wound, that I’m still lying in a coma back in Mount Sinai Hospital, dreaming the whole thing from my electrically-adjustable hospital bed, connected to drips which alternately feed and extract waste from my body, my lifeless eyes covered by lids which flicker from time to time, providing a small measure of hope for anyone that still cares.
The door opens then, and De Nares strolls back in, Michaels trailing behind him. Ben’s eyes flick up, rest on the two ABI officers for a moment, then turn away. I wonder what’s going through Ben’s mind. Does he agree with them? Does he think I’m involved in some way?
Michaels sits back down, still watching obliquely from the side-lines. De Nares pulls his own chair out, legs screeching against the tiled floor. Sitting down, he flicks the recorder back on, notes the time, continues the questioning.
“What can you tell us about Paul Southland?” The question catches me off-guard. What does Paul have to do with any of this?
“I was engaged to him, before an accident I suffered back in New York.”
“The attack at the courthouse?”
I nod my head, then remember the recorder. “Yes. I woke up from a coma after six months, Paul had taken the ring off my finger and moved out.”
“Nice guy. Have you spoken to him since?”
I consider lying, but decide against it; they’ll find out soon enough anyway. “He called –” I pause as I work out the time-frame; even though my last memory is going to sleep on Thursday night, I have to remember that today is actually Sunday; he called me on Saturday night, before the party – “last night, before I left for the party, about six o’clock, I guess.”
“Excuse me, so you actually left for the party last night?”
“Of course I left, I went to the party, then came home about eleven, half eleven.” I see the look of confusion on De Nares’ face, and wonder if it’s genuine.
“Well, let’s leave that for the moment, we’ll get back into that later.” He writes on the pad in front of him, the first time I’ve noticed it. I wonder what he’s writing. He looks back up at me. “Let’s get back to Paul Southland. Why did he call you?”
“To apologize. He said he was sorry about everything, he realizes he acted terribly, what he did was awful, inexcusable, but could I find it in my heart to forgive him, he still loves me, wants to be with me.” I feel a tear forming in my eye, wipe it away before it appears fully. “He wanted to come and see me.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I hung up.”
De Nares pauses, chewing on the end of his pen. “Really?” he asks in a measured tone, before seeming to change tack. “Do you know where Paul is now?”
“New York, I presume.”
De Nares nods his head, seeming to weigh things up. “He’s right here in Alaska. He’s being picked up right now, as a matter of fact.” He looks at me, examining me. “Did you really not know?”
I shake my head, shocked. “I had no idea whatsoever.”
“So what we have is a woman who reports a crime which hasn’t happened yet, a crime which involves one male accomplice at the very least; and on the other, we have your ex-fiancée right here, thousands of miles from home.”
The implication is clear; De Nares is insinuating that we kidnapped, raped and killed the girl together. “But the girl had obviously been held captive for days, some of the wounds didn’t look recent, she looke
d like time had been spent . . .”
“Yes, time had been spent abusing her. The doctors think whoever’s responsible took between three and five days doing those things to her.”
“But Paul must have only just got here. If he called me at six, he couldn’t have got to Alaska before this morning, after the girl was found, after –”
“The call originated from a payphone in Anchorage,” De Nares says, cutting me off. “He was already here when he called you.”
For the first time, I am truly nervous. “How long has he been here?” I ask, not wanting to know.
The answer comes too soon, the corners of De Nares’ mouth turning up as he speaks, his tone accusatory, daring me to insist otherwise.
“Five days.”
2
The three men have left me in the interview room to go for their lunch. A tray with a sandwich and a coke has been set in front of me, and I wonder if they are still watching me. I guess that De Nares is, at least.
They want me to stew in my juices for a while, make me think they know everything. They do seem to know more than me, but I realize that they are just fishing. They must be; I know I had nothing to do with it.
But Paul? Could Paul be involved in some way? Why is he here in Alaska? Why has he been here for a week without calling?
But I know Paul, and although he’s not perfect, there’s no way he’d be involved in anything like this. Why would he? He’s successful, rich, attractive, charming. But wasn’t Ted Bundy all those things? Well, maybe not rich, but attractive and charming, certainly. And what he did has gone down in history. Nobody ever suspected what he was capable of, not even those closest to him.
But Paul?
I’m sure there must be a reasonable explanation; he’s probably here on business, wasn’t sure whether to contact me, then finally decided to do it. He probably would’ve told me he was here if I hadn’t put the phone down on him. Or maybe he came specifically to see me, then thought better of it, spent the past few days fighting an internal battle with himself, unwilling to admit to what he did, unable to apologize.
Red Moon Rising Page 6