Nightmerrogation

Everybody understood that, and had this been just another normal work day, no one would have any intention of departing. What was hard for some of them to deal with, on the other hand, was having their desks and drawers searched. However, the search actually ended up taking not very long at all.

"Everyone, your attention again, please," said the same policeman, from a familiar area of the office. All heads turned his way once more. Mary's and Lucy's eyes widened.

He checked the nameplate. "This cubicle is occupied by a Miss...Lucy Taylor?"

Lucy's blood went ice-cold.

"Um...I'm...Lucy Taylor," she said, taking a timid step forward.

They had her bottom drawer on the side of her cube open. "Please come over here with us for a moment, Miss Taylor," another of the officers said.

Lucy was suddenly incredibly nervous and apprehensive. WHY would they be concerned with what was in her dra-...

She came close enough to look inside, and her heart froze.

Dear God in Heaven... she thought with terror.

A revolver.

And...a sizable stack of cash?

And a...what else was in there?

Lucy knew all eyes were glued to her, but that was the last thing on her mind. She realized what was happening...she was being framed! Whoever killed Victoria had planted the evidence on her—along with a ton of money which came from who knew where—and a third, momentarily unidentifiable object. The gloved hands removed all three.

"W-what?? Tha-oh, my G-...that's no-tho-...those aren't mine!" Lucy claimed. "Someone else put them there!"

The third object was a small recording device. One of the officers clicked a button on it, and everyone in the office suddenly heard Lucy's voice electronically coming through it.

"Why should we let her get away with that?"

WHAT in the... she thought with sudden dread. OH, sweet Jesus...

"'Let her get away with that'?...What can we do about it?" came Mary's voice.

A nauseous feeling welled up inside Lucy. Her heart started pounding. Someone had framed her for this murder...AND somehow recorded her, saying...

"You know, Mare...sometimes I wish that woman were dead."

Her colleagues behind her let out a cacophony of gasps and other shocked exclamations. The device started playing Mary's next sentence, as Mary herself stepped forward.

"Hey! Whoa!" said Mary. "No, that's impossible! Officers, I was with Lucy last night; there was no way she could have had anything to do with this. She just said she wished that, that's all. You can take my word for it, Lucy Taylor is no murderer."

"...right," they heard Lucy's voice say on the device. "But I still say she needs to be taught a bloody lesson."

OH no...dear God, NO... thought Lucy, terrified, feeling a weight of doom descending upon her.

One of the officers addressed Mary. "Yes, well, unfortunately, ma'am, the word of a friend is not a sufficient alibi to—"

"B-but I do have an alibi!" cried Lucy. "You heard her! She was with me, we went out to dinner last night! We were at the Moonbeam Café! I had a grilled cheese sandw—"

"I'm sorry, Miss Taylor," the first officer said. "We're going to need you to come to the station with us." He removed his handcuffs and started cuffing her behind her back. More worried chatter and murmuring generated from their co-workers.

Lucy couldn't believe it. "Y-...are you arresting me??" she shrieked.

"You're not officially under arrest just yet, Miss Taylor," said the same officer. "The cuffing's just procedure, for everyone's safety and protection. At this point we're just going to ask you a few questions."

These two of the officers started gathering up the evidence and escorting Lucy towards the door.

"B-but-but, you can't do this!" pleaded Lucy, being herded past her stunned co-workers. "You can't! I'm innocent! I'm innocent!"

"Wait a minute!" called Mary after them. "If she's going to the police station, I'm going with her!"

Mary started after them, but another of the officers held her back. "Ma'am, please remain in the building. At this point we cannot allow anyone else to leave."

"HEY!" Mary shouted. "That is my best friend you're taking outta here! And she is innocent!"

"Ma'am, she is not being arrested yet. She's only being taken in for questioning."

"Then take me in for questioning!" retorted Mary. "I don't care! I am going with her!"

The other remaining officer stepped in and took Mary by her other arm. "Ma'am!" he said. "No one else may leave at this moment. If you cannot comply, we're going to have to restrain you."

Mary stopped and took a couple of frustrated breaths. For one brief second she considered doing something irrational that would make the officers arrest her, just so she too could go to the station, but that wouldn't do any good. On the contrary; if anything, it would just make her appear dangerous and threatening too, and potentially put poor Lucy in even more peril. Much as she hated to, she finally had to admit she didn't have the control to win this argument. She put her hands around her mouth and called in the direction her innocent friend had been led off, "LUCY, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, I'M GONNA COME GET YOU AS SOON AS THEY LET US OUTTA HERE!"

The cops held on to her for another moment. "All right, all right," she told them calmly, "It's fine, I won't give you any more trouble." They released her arms. She solemnly returned to her cubicle and let the attention gradually drift away from her. She put her palms to the desk, shaking her virtually spinning head, unable to believe what was happening any better than Lucy could. This is impossible! she mouthed to herself. How the hell cou...

Something suddenly stuck in her mind. She turned back around and joined most of her colleagues, who were still gathered around Victoria's office.

"Hey, guys?"

***

July 8th, 11:46 a.m.

The day wasn't even half over, and Lucy already felt more betrayed than she could ever remember feeling. Betrayed by whom, of course, she didn't even know. In the meantime, while they may not have arrested her, they did confiscate her purse and her shoes, recuffed her hands in front of herself and made her submit her fingerprints. Actually, Lucy was glad and relieved when they took her fingerprints, because she had obviously never laid a hand on that money or that gun, and now they'd finally have to realize she was innocent.

They led her into a dim room and shut the door. One of the officers uncuffed her and withdrew, leaving the two who had taken her from her office. She padded in barefoot.

"Did you really have to take me shoes?" she asked indignantly, looking with disappointment at the dirt on the bottoms of her feet.

"Have a seat, Miss Taylor," said one of them, ignoring her question.

The light above the table was bright enough for her to see everything, but still not bright enough to give her much comfort. She pulled down her dress, sat and dusted her grimy feet off. "Ugh, ugh, ugh," she groused uncomfortably.

"Now then, Miss Taylor," began the other, "...Do you prefer Miss Taylor, or Lucy?"

"Eh...Lucy's fine."

"Very well, Lucy. Now...how long have you been employed at SunComp?"

"Uh...it'll be...three years in October."

"And in those three years, have you always been under the direct supervision of Victoria Sorenson?"

Ugh again. "Yes."

"No other supervisors or bosses?"

"No, just her."

"And how would you describe your relationship with Ms. Sorenson during this time?"

UH-oh...

"She was...me boss," Lucy shrugged.

"Meaning...?"

Hmm, how to best do this... "Well...sometimes she was reasonable, and...sometimes she was more...well, demanding."

"Can you give us an example?"

Can I give you an example?? Stop me before I get laryngitis!

"Well, just yesterday, as a matter of fact, she demanded that I come in to work on both Saturday and Sunday, even though it was extremely short notice, and I already had plans for the weekend that were very significant to me. But she absolutely insisted I cancel them anyway."

"And was this the stipulation on which you based your desire that Miss Sorenson be dead?"

UH-oh...

"Well...it was just the latest in a series of ways she...rode me, and persecuted me, and just made my life a livi—"

"MISS...Taylor..." one of the officers interrupted her, speaking more fiercely to her, standing from his chair. He leaned over the steel table between them and penetrated her eyes with his stare. "Let's cut to the chase here. Did you kill Victoria Sorenson?!"

"No!" Lucy insisted, naturally a little intimidated. "Of course not!"

The other officer produced a laptop which he placed on the table and opened. "We'd like you to have a look at something, Miss Taylor," he said ominously as he punched a few keys and brought up a file. He turned the laptop around to show her the monitor. It was a digital scan of Lucy's fingerprint, he explained to her.

Lucy gulped. Somehow, she did not have a good feeling about what would be happening in the next few minutes. But...wasn't this supposed to be the good news? Weren't they supposed to determine that she was innocent now?

The officer turned the laptop to the side, pressed another key, and brought up an identical scan on the other side of the screen. "And this...as it turns out...happens to be the digital readout of the print of the same finger we dusted up on the murder weapon.

"You'll notice, Miss Taylor..." he continued, turning back to face a now very panic-stricken Lucy—

"...that they are one and the same."

What??...

No...no, she told herself frantically, terror welling in her eyes. This...this-this is not happening. This is not happening. This cannot be happening!

"But...that-that's impossible!" she cried. "I never touched that pistol! I never even SAW it before today! This is a huge mistake!!"

"Yes, well, regardless of whether you 'sawr' it or didn't 'sawr' it, Miss Taylor, the prints, don't, lie."

What the hell do these bloody Yanks have against my mother land's speech patterns??

Things had taken a turn for the downright unreal. Lucy Olivia Taylor was a very self-aware individual. She knew herself. She knew her own heart, mind and soul, better than anyone else, better than Mary, better than Greg. The one single, solitary thing she could never, ever be, in her wildest dreams, was a murderer. It was nowhere near anything in her benevolent nature. She was honest and kind and wholesome. Her brain would not even allow her to consider the possibilities of such conditions as amnesia or split personalities to explain this atrocious anomaly. It simply wasn't true! That was all there was to it.

"I'm not a murderer!" she exclaimed, starting to feel her belly rumbling and her eyes moistening.

"Later, Miss Taylor," said one of them. "Now before the court issues your arrest warrant, there's one more small matter we need to settle here."

"But...bu-..." Lucy helplessly pleaded, starting to lose her voice.

"As you can see, we've securely taken the murder weapon, the money and the recording device into custody. But before we turn them over, we will need to have documented in our report all relevant details involved in this case. And that means we're going to need a statement from you in regard to the circumstances under which you obtained this money from Victoria Sorenson."

"Wha—?!" Just when she thought it couldn't get any less believable. Her voice loudened. "Officers, I am NOT, a, thief! I am not a thief, and I am certainly bloody well no murderer!! How can I get this through to you?!"

The officers started to get the evidence and the laptop packed back away. "Save it for the judge, Miss Taylor," said the one who had showed her the laptop. "Now, either you can tell us how you came to acquire the money, or you can tell Detective Geller."

"But I am telling you, I didn't take—" Lucy paused. Her voice lowered. "Who's Detective Geller?" she asked timidly.

"Detective Geller, Miss Taylor," said the other, "Is the investigator...under whose, eh...care...we'll be placing you, until such time as you are willing to divulge the specifics of obtaining Miss Sorenson's funds."

"But, I-I can't divulge that, because I didn't TAKE it!"

"OH, I think you'll divulge it to Detective Geller, Miss Taylor," were the first officer's last words to her.

"That's right," added the second. "We call her..." Pause for effect. "...'The Leech.'"

Suddenly, Lucy felt as if an actual leech were sucking away at her from inside. She started to have trouble breathing. She put both feet on the floor, no longer even caring about the dirt, leaned forward, and gasped for air.

She watched in frightened shock as the officers left the room, closing the door behind them. Once the door clicked shut, Lucy couldn't hold it back any more. Her face crumpled into a tragedy mask as she put it in her hands and feebly sobbed.

She let out the tears for about a minute, then took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. "How is this happening to me?!" she demanded to know. "WHY is it happening to me?!"

She continued to let the tears out for about another sixty seconds, until she heard the door click and creak back open again. Oh, God, she thought, dreading those sounds. As much as she didn't want to, she looked up.

The looming figure that had just entered the room and shut the door again behind her was clad in a fedora, trench coat, black gloves and black knee-high boots that were almost invisible in the lack of light the room offered. She carried a rather sizable bag at her side whose contents Lucy did not want to even consider. Also due to the dimness, Lucy was unable to detect any features of the detective's face under the fedora.

"Hello, Lucy," said the dark, low voice. She sounded androgynous. Lucy wouldn't have known it was a woman had the officers not mentioned so. She said nothing in reply, just looked down at the floor in front of her.

The detective approached. "I understand you have a little something to tell me about the recent events involving your late supervisor...perhaps a, uh...few little somethings?"

Lucy was just about ready to scream her lungs out and fling her chair across the room. "For the hundredth bloody time, I didn't KILL her!" she protested, striking her thighs with her fists.

Detective Geller ambled over to the table before her, sat on it and crossed her legs. "Mm...you know, as an investigator, I get that a lot, Lucy. However, in my experience with prisoners and criminals, after spending a couple hours of fun with me, quite a few tunes have been changed." She blew on her nails and shined them up on the coat. Sitting closer to her, her face was only slightly easier to make out. It would have been easier still if Lucy's eyes weren't muddled with tears.

"There is a reason I am at the top of my profession, Lucy. And there is a reason I'm referred to as 'The Leech.' My method is rather...intense...a bit extreme...yet from past experience, I'd have to say also very, very persuasive. 'Tis a cliché, yes, I'm sure you've heard it many times before, but it's true, and you may lay to this..."

Her next eight words struck deep fear into Lucy's heart.

"I do have ways...of making you talk."

Geller smiled at her, though it was impossible to see. Lucy wouldn't look at her. She stared at the cold hard floor, nervously curling her toes under her feet, sniffling and pawing at her eyes.

"Care to get started?"

Lucy was starting to seethe inside over this whole escapade, but she didn't have much energy to yell anymore. "I'm telling you, for God's sake, I did not bloody do it," she repeated through clenched teeth. "I'm innocent. I was framed."

"Very well," Geller sighed matter-of-factly, jumping back down to the floor. She patted the surface of the steel table with her palm. "Hop on up, lassie."

Lucy looked up with a quizzical expression. "What?"

She patted it again. "You heard me, my little crumpet. On the table. N-O-W."

Lucy glared up at her through her soaked eyes. "Why in hell's name would I get up on that table?"

Geller took a breath. "Well, for one, if you refuse to cooperate with me, I don't think my little friend here would appreciate it very much," she informed her, patting one of her coat pockets, which Lucy even in the dim light could tell contained a very powerful item. Lucy let another couple of tears drop to the floor before she moved.

"I henceforth reiterate, Miss Lucy Taylor," she growled at her sternly, "On, the, table."

With indescribable reluctance, Lucy pushed herself up from the chair and put her hands on the table, starting to lift one leg up. Geller stopped her momentarily.

"Oh—just a moment," she said as she halted her ascent. "We need to make one slight adjustment first. Get the dress off, please."

"WHAT?" Lucy squealed.

"Again, you heard me, ya little English muffin: remove your dress, and then get on the table."

"WH—" Lucy was about to ask why again, but she was getting the feeling that she wouldn't get any compassion out of this situation or this nasty investigator. "Oh, this is bloody sick," she grumbled as she slipped down the shoulder straps. She took it off, trying to keep it from touching the floor, and draped it over the chair. Now stripped to the underwear, she climbed onto the table.

"Very good. Now lay down on your stomach."

Once more, Lucy's first instinct was to ask why, but arriving at the same quick conclusion she had last time, she just let out a whimper and obeyed the order. She squeaked again as the rest of her skin made contact with the cold steel surface. A second later, she heard the rattling of metal and she felt the detective stretching her arms out forward from the rest of her and recuffing her hands. She dropped her face on the head of the table, the rest of her body now sharing the cold steel sensation with her nose and her forehead.

After her hands were done, she felt her feet now being cuffed as well. She didn't like that one bit. She squirmed and whined, kicking at the table to be set free, until Geller forced her feet down and finally restrained them too.

The next object Geller put to use out of her bag was a length of thick, sturdy twine, which she wrapped around the short handcuff chain between Lucy's wrists, threaded lengthwise under the table, brought back up the other side and connected it to her footcuffs, drawing the restraint nice and tight, giving Lucy the least amount of slack or mobility possible. "That reason I mentioned before, Lucy, the reason that I am the most effective interrogator in the city is as immediately follows: I do not believe in mercy."

Naturally, she still could not believe this was happening, not in the least. What did I ever do to deserve to be put through this? she thought resentfully. I'm a good person! I'm an honest person! How could this be happening to me?! She felt hurt, angry and terrified all in the same emotion. Four hours ago, this was, more or less, a perfectly normal Friday, and she was simply on her way to work, like any other day this week (or weekend). Now she'd had her freedom forcibly taken away from her, right along with her dignity, to say nothing of her clothes. And though it mattered less, she was also unable to get over Victoria's death. True, she intensely disliked the woman, it was just shocking to think that, once again, twenty-four hours ago, everything was perfectly status quo. Now her whole world was upside-down.