Page 46 of What Happened Last Night

“I’m ready to talk,” I said. “Please tell Officer Dumont I will speak to him.”

The police officer laughed.

“It’s after one o’clock in the morning. You really think any of the officers are going to come down here at this time of the night just to talk to you?” he said.

“Fine,” I said. “Then just let me out of here and I’ll come back in the morning.”

“No can do, I’m afraid. You’re not technically under arrest as you came here willingly, but you are now in official police custody, and to get out of here, your husband would need to bail you out. I spoke to him when you were brought in here, and that’s clearly not going to happen,” he said. “Only Detective Del Rey has the authority to allow for your release without the bail money, and if you think I’m calling him in the middle of the night for that, then you are sorely mistaken.”

I walked away from the bars and back to my bunk, defeated for the moment. I could feel anger stirring inside myself again, though. Fucking William. He had caused this, and now he wasn’t even going to get me out of here? Not even when he now knew he was the one who had killed Candy? Of course, he wasn’t. Why would he? He had never owned up to anything in his life. He always found someone else to take the rap for him. I just never thought it would be me.

I could picture that smug look back on his face when I closed my eyes, and it made me want to retch, but I kept my eyes closed all the same, afraid that if I opened them, one of my cell mates would see I wasn’t asleep and would try to talk to me. Or worse, pick a fight with me.

That night was definitely the longest night of my life, and by the time Officer Dumont appeared at the bars the next day, I would have talked to Jack the fucking Ripper if it meant I could get out of this hell hole.

At some point during the night, the drunk had thrown up everywhere and refused to even attempt to clean it up. The sober girl had punched her hard in the face and she had fallen back onto her bunk. No one had touched the puddle of vomit, and the smell had slowly permeated everything in the cell.

I got up a couple of hours after the fight, desperate for a pee and thinking everyone else was asleep. I wasn’t overly happy about using the toilet in front of three strangers, not even three sleeping strangers, but I did what I had to do and got up off the toilet and flushed it. That’s when I had realized the scary sober girl was watching me. Her eyes were definitely open. I could see them shining with the low light from the hallway.

“Maybe you should clean that up,” she said, nodding to the pool of vomit.

I knew this could go a couple of ways here. I could agree and save myself a beating, but then I would have to clean up the vile mess and I would be seen as someone who could be bullied into anything. Or I could say no and probably take a fist to my face. Or I could act like I wasn’t scared of her and just hope she backed down.

“Or maybe you should fuck off,” I said as I headed for my bunk.

“Excuse me?” she said, sitting up.

I turned to her, and something in my expression must have looked as crazy as I felt, because she held her hands up and gave a shaky laugh.

“I was just joking,” she said.

I didn’t reply. I just wanted to turn away from her so that she couldn’t see my relieved expression. Needless to say, I don’t think I slept at all that night.

“Carlotta Alden,” Officer Dumont said from the cell door. “Detective Del Rey is ready to talk to you now.”

The officer from the desk came along and unlocked the cell, and I walked out, glad of the slightly better smelling air in the hallway. I had survived my first night in jail, and it had solidified the knowledge of my needing to save myself now. I wouldn’t spend another night in jail. I was going to tell the detective everything.

Officer Dumont led me back to the interview room, and I realized with horror that I was starting to think of the room as my interview room. You know you’re caught up way too deeply in something bad when you’ve been in a police interview room enough times to be starting to think of it as your own room.

I stepped into the interview room and saw Detective Del Rey sitting at the desk already. Officer Dumont pulled the door closed, leaving just me and the detective.

“So you’re finally ready to talk to me, huh?” Detective Del Rey said.

“I could say the same to you,” I replied as I stood nervously in the doorway of the room.

“But you’re not going to be stupid enough to antagonize me like that, are you? Take a seat, Carlotta,” Detective Del Rey said.

I moved to the seat and sat down. It was time to tell the detective everything.

“Officer Dumont said William told you some stuff. Detective, none of it is true. I didn’t hurt Candy. The only thing I am guilty of is lying to you earlier to protect my husband. He’s trying to make me take the fall for this when it’s all his fault. Don’t you see that?”

Detective Del Rey sat back in his chair; his eyebrows raised. He looked at me with such hostility that I felt it inside myself. I had to make him believe me, but judging by his expression, it was going to be even harder than I had imagined it would be.

“Right now, Carlotta, I see a woman desperate to save her own skin,” the detective said. “But I’m willing to hear you out.”

That was something, at least. He was going to give me a chance to explain everything. I just had to find the right words and make him believe me. My story had to be more convincing than William’s, and in theory, it should be, because mine had the advantage of actually being true.

“Candy and William where having an affair, as you know,” I began. “Candy turned up at our house that night. I assume she got in through the broken window in the basement, but in all honesty, that part is just my best guess. I woke up and she was standing in the bedroom doorway. She had a knife, and she was talking crazy, saying she was pregnant and that she and William were going to raise the baby together and all that kind of stuff. She had a dangerous look about her, like maybe she was high or something, or maybe she had just snapped, I don’t know. William tried to talk to her, to calm her down. But she wouldn’t listen to reason. And then she came at me with the knife.”

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