“What time did you leave work?” Snow countered, not feeding into his remarks for even a moment.
“I don’t know. The normal, ten o’clock probably? I wasn’t keeping track, I mean I have an eleven o’clock curfew on work days so I know I was home before then. It’s not like I was writing it down though, I didn’t know I would need a fucking alibi because I didn’t fucking do anything to anybody.” Craig said, getting irritated again with his voice escalating in volume.
“Who saw you come home? Who saw you leave work?” Snow continued, not missing a beat.
“My boss saw me leave work and I live with my cousin, Jimmy. He works with me but he wasn’t working that night. I don’t know if he saw me that night. We don’t like hang out or anything. I probably just made some food and went to my room, played video games and went to bed.” Craig replied. Snow pushed a pad of paper and a pencil towards Craig across the metal table.
“I’m going to need everyone’s names and numbers.” She told him and then stood up from the table and left the room. McCraig followed her, staring menacingly at Craig the entire time as he picked up the pencil and began writing on the paper.
The detectives watched him finish writing the information down through the one way window, carefully watching his facial expressions as he looked angrily around the room and then back at his paper.
“You think he is telling the truth?” Snow asked her partner, her arms folded across her chest as she continued to stare through the window.
“I think it’s a pretty good possibility but we are going to need some serious evidence. We are not getting a confession out of him easily. Even with his temper. He has been through a trial and jail once, never confessing to what he did. We need to come prepared with an airtight case.” McCraig told her, then headed back toward the interrogation room to lead their suspect out and collect the information he had written down.
Snow stood there a bit longer, pondering what her partner had said. She knew he was right but something still wasn’t sitting well with her with this entire case. She couldn’t pin point it, but something was missing from the story.
~~~~
Kate was pushing papers and miscellaneous items into her purse at the end of a long first day back at work, leaning down with her head almost beneath her desk to reach her purse on the floor. As she fumbled through it, she saw a streak of white that caught her eye. She recognized it before she even looked at it fully, gingerly grabbing the edge with two fingers and sliding it out of her purse. She must have stared at it over a hundred times by now.
Still hidden beneath her desk, she stared at that small photograph she couldn’t seem to part with. It was the instant kind of photograph, no bigger than her hand and her own image stared back at her from beneath the cold glare on the glossy paper. Her attacker had taken this photograph and left it for her just moments after he hurt her. She was barely clothed and what few remnants were left on her were torn and bloody. Her face was unrecognizable, swollen and cut up.
Hints of this girl still peered back at her in the mirror even though Kate did her best to hide her behind concealer and face powder. But would she ever really be able to hide these scars? Physically they would heal, but internally Kate felt the lacerations ran deeper than any stitches could repair.
“Ready to go?” A deep voice behind Kate broke out of the silence and the grasp her memories had on her. Startled, she jumped up from her position leaning down underneath her desk. This resulted in her slamming the back of her head right into the bottom of her desk, creating a resounding thud that echoed in her ears as she felt like her brain was bouncing around in her skull.
“Lord, Kate, are you okay?” Lenny was the owner of the voice behind her as he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She was sitting up in her office chair now, rubbing her head to dull the pain.
“Oh gosh, yeah. That was embarrassing.” Kate grinned as she looked up at her uncle, still rubbing her head.
“No, it’s my fault. I’m so light on my feet, like a young dancer in my prime.” Lenny smiled at her, joking since he was probably the weight of ten young dancers combined. Kate burst out laughing. She loved that her uncle was always able to make any situation better, she couldn’t be anything but joyful around him.
“Ready for dinner?” Lenny asked her again, pulling his coat on. Kate stood up and did the same, picking up her purse. The two had planned earlier to do dinner tonight since she hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Plus Kate never turned down a free dinner from her uncle, he always took her to places way outside what she could afford.