Читать книгу They - SLMN - Страница 7
ОглавлениеMelissa paced her cell with her hands in her hair and tears in her eyes. Whenever anyone passed she would call out to them, asking if they knew what had happened to her boyfriend. They ignored her.
She had little idea of how long she’d been in there. They’d taken her phone and she didn’t have any other way to tell the time, so she paced up and down behind the bars, chewed her fingernails and demanded answers from any person she saw. Her ribs and arm ached from where the cop kicked her. They hadn’t even given her water. She needed to pee but refused to use the highly public metal toilet in the corner of the cell. Nobody offered her a phone call or provided a lawyer.
But she didn’t care about her own condition. She only wanted to know if her boyfriend was alive or dead.
Eventually an officer in uniform took her out of her cell and escorted her to an interview room. Melissa wasn’t handcuffed, but the woman tugged on her injured arm and refused to say a word.
She sat in silence for some time, the female cop in the corner still not talking.
“Where’s my boyfriend?” she asked. The woman ignored her. “Can I use the washroom please?” No response. “The bathroom? The restroom? Whatever the fuck you call it?”
Still nothing.
“I’m going to pee right here all over your chair,” Melissa warned her. The officer seemed to come to a decision. She strode over, pulled Melissa to her feet by her injured arm, then hurried her from the room to the washroom.
The officer stood outside the cubicle while Melissa did her business, then escorted her back to the room once she’d washed her hands.
Another cop was waiting when she returned. He was white with grey hair and a heavily lined face, like he did a lot of frowning.
“Where’s my boyfriend?” Melissa said as she sat down opposite the cop.
“Name?”
“You know my name. You have my passport. Where’s Howie?”
“Name?”
“Melissa Jones.”
“Nationality?”
“Canadian. Can you please tell me…?”
“Age?”
“Nineteen.”
“Reason for being in the US?”
“I’m not answering any more questions until you tell me how my boyfriend is.”
Melissa folded her arms and stared at him, daring him to ask something else.
The cop cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Howard Douglas died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.”
The bottom fell out of Melissa’s world. She stared blankly at the policeman for an age, her eyes filling with tears. She drew her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs, rocking slightly as she chanted, “no no no,” over and over again.
“What happens next, Miss Jones, is up to you. You can either walk out of here, get your things from the hotel and take the next flight back to Toronto, or we can charge you with resisting arrest and have you deported. The choice is yours.”
“Why? Why did he shoot him? Why did Howie have to die? I don’t understand.” Melissa could no longer see through the tears. Her wailing voice sounded muffled and dead in the small interview room, which echoed what was in her heart.
“Mr. Douglas was shot by an officer who believed his life was in danger. It was self defense, Miss Jones.”
“He wasn’t in danger! He had Howie’s gun.”
“The officer believed Mr. Douglas had a second firearm.”
“That’s bullshit. He murdered him. Why isn’t he locked in a cell?”
The female officer behind Melissa placed a box of tissues on the table before her. Melissa smacked the box across the room. The man opposite her didn’t flinch.
“Miss Jones, I strongly advise you not to use words like ‘murder’. If you want to see Canada again…”
“Are you threatening me now?” Melissa roared at him. “If I don’t do as you say there’s going to be an accident and I’ll end up dead too? Is that it?”
“Miss Jones,” the officer said. “Do we need to put you in cuffs?”
Melissa fell quiet. Despite her distress, she was fully aware she was sitting in a police station in a foreign nation, and she could get in serious trouble if she pushed her protest too hard. She did want to go home. She did want to go back to Toronto, to her family, to her friends. Here she knew nobody, and nobody was likely to step up and defend her. Without Howie she was completely alone. There was her agent in L.A., but she hadn’t known her long and didn’t honestly know if their professional relationship extended to getting her client out of jail. She knew she had to play along. She knew she had to help them cover up the awful thing they had done. Perhaps once safely back in Toronto she could make a fuss, talk to the media, use her channel to tell her fans what really happened.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll play along. I won’t say anything to anyone if you let me fly home.”
“Good. Thank you, Miss Jones. I’m glad you’ve seen reason.”
“Besides,” Melissa added. “I don’t need to say anything. Howie’s fans will have seen the video of the shooting by now.”
“Howie’s… fans?”
Melissa laughed humorlessly. “You have no idea who you killed, do you?”
“Should we?”
“You’ve never heard of This is Howie Do? The YouTube channel? He has four million subscribers and every one of them is going to be pissed as fuck with you.”
“We’re prepared for some demonstrations as a result of this unfortunate incident.”
“Oh this is going to be like nothing you’ve seen before. And when my fans hear about it –”
“Your fans?”
“Yeah, I don’t have as many subs as Howie did, but I have a pretty big following too. You guys need to spend more time taking an interest in what your teens are watching. Even if I say nothing, Howie ain’t gonna go quietly.”
The officer sat stony-faced.
“Just remember,” he said, unmoved by Melissa’s outburst, “get your stuff from the hotel, go to the airport, say nothing to anybody. Do you understand?”
Melissa stood up. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry again. She stared at him defiantly as the lady cop opened the door to the room. Without a word, she turned and marched out, her head held high.
She took some time in the washroom cleaning herself up. Her escort waited outside for her this time. Then she led Melissa to the entrance and gave her back her things, including her cell phone.
“Can I have my luggage from Howie’s car?” Melissa almost choked when she said his name.
“Not today. The car is impounded at another location. Check back tomorrow.”
Melissa didn’t argue. She put on her jacket and placed her items in the pockets.
“For what it’s worth,” the lady officer said to her before she left the station, “I’m really sorry about what happened.”
Melissa smiled weakly. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t nearly enough, but it was something.
Outside on the street, a storm of reporters accosted her. Questions flew thick and fast as she fought her way through the throng to the waiting taxi.
“No comment,” she said at least a dozen times. It took well over a minute to travel just a dozen meters to the road. She had to battle to open the cab door against the crush of cameras and microphones. Eventually she managed to squeeze herself into the back seat and close the door, deadening the cacophony.
“Where to?” asked the driver, looking with concern at the crush of people pressed up against the side of his cab.
Melissa checked her phone. Her agent had booked a flight for her to Toronto leaving tomorrow afternoon, and a hotel for the night. She was exhausted, so maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t catching a flight right away. She wondered if she’d be able to sleep.
She told the driver where to go and carefully, he pulled the cab onto the road.
