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The whole damn ride to the police station Miller talks, although brags might be a better word. How he always knew he’d have a reason to have me in the back of his car again; how seeing me in cuffs again is the highlight of his fucking year; that this time no community service is going to save my sorry ass. I seriously consider bashing my head into the window just so I won’t have to hear him another moment.
But nothing he says brings me any closer to finding out what happened to Stanley. What happened to him? How did he end up dead? Murdered? When? Monday, Tuesday, today? The answers send waves of both sadness and confusion rushing over me. Did he die in pain or was it fast, whatever it was? Was he killed because he went back to the life he was trying his best to outrun, or did he die because the life he was trying to leave behind had caught up to him?
“Your new home,” Miller says, bringing my attention to the fact that we’ve arrived at the police station. “Or at least until we move you to the prison.”
His snicker follows him out of the car. He slams the door closed, and I have to take a deep breath to dissuade myself from kicking the shit out of him the moment he opens my door. Maybe he has a little bit of a brain because he gives me a wide berth when he opens the door. I get out as best as I can without being able to use my hands for balance, and he goes behind me, once again squeezing the cuffs into my wrists as he pushes me forward.
“Room two,” the officer behind the desk says as soon as we enter.
“Who’s got this one?” Miller asks.
“Coney and Erins.”
Miller jerks me hard to turn me towards the hallway to our right.
“Let’s go.” He commands. “We wouldn’t want to keep the detectives waiting. I’m sure you have lots to discuss with them.”
“Like how this is all a bunch of bullshit, and there’s no way they can charge me with something I didn’t do?”
“Keep telling those lies.” He taunts as we enter the empty interview room. “Maybe that pretty little whore will believe them, but I damn sure don’t.”
He uncuffs one of my hands as he finishes his sentence, bringing both of them to the front of me. The split second he loosens his grip to reach for the chain attached to the table is all I need to whip around and grab his collar. His moment of shock allows me to push him back. I would smile at the thud I hear when his head connects with the one way mirror, but instead I bring my face close to his.
“Call her a whore one more time. I fucking dare you, you piece of shit.”
He grins and the sight of it is so unnerving. “Yeah, show us what a killer you are.”
I fed right into his hands with this, but a part of me just doesn’t care. Not after what he called Mariah.
A second later, cops are bursting through the door. A barrage of fists and boots punish my body for daring to touch one of their own. I end up on the floor doing the only thing I can, protecting my head.
“Enough.” Someone barks and the hits stop. “Get him in the chair.”
Someone lifts me up, and I weakly push their hands away.
“Get the fuck off of me,” I snap.
I go towards the chair myself, even if it hurts like hell to get there. After I sit down with a painful huff, unsurprisingly, it’s Miller who comes to put the cuff back on my free hand and connect the handcuffs to the chain.
“Get used to the beatings,” he says low. “It won’t be the last time.” Then he straightens up and looks across the room. “He’s all yours.”
The sound of many footfalls leaving fills the room as I lift my head, which suddenly feels like it weighs a ton, to look at who’s staying. Two detectives. Both staring at me, one with dead expressionless eyes, and the other with a tight smile. So, the good cop, bad cop routine then I guess.
“I’m Detective Coney,” the smiling one introduces himself. “And this is Detective Erins. We’re here to find out what happened to Mr. Phillips.”
“Yeah? Me too,” I all but groan.
I move through the pain to sit up straighter, the chain rattling as I join my hands.
“We’re here to help you, Mr. Lewis,” Coney continues. “You just have to tell us the truth, and this will all go a lot smoother.”
“We don’t want to hear any lies.” Erins warns. “Your being here should already tell you that we know what the truth is, have evidence of it. So let’s not waste each other’s time thinking you’re going to outsmart us or lie your way out of this.”
Then the questions begin.
Why did I murder Stanley?
I didn’t. Would never. I didn’t even know he was dead until Miller told me.
Where was I three nights ago?
Mariah’s house. But now I know Stanley was killed on Sunday night. God.
What did Stanley do that made me angry enough to kill him?
I didn’t kill him. He was one of my best workers, a good person. I had no reason to be angry with him.
They continue, asking question after question until they all start to bleed together. New questions, same questions asked in different ways, questions meant to confuse me, trip me up, get me to say something that they can twist and turn until it means what they want it to.
Was it over drugs? Money? Because he found out I had a criminal past, and I didn’t want him to tell anyone? Was it over a woman? Did he steal something from me and I needed to teach him a lesson? They even try to go the sympathetic route. Was it a mistake? Did we have an argument and things just got out of hand? Did I regret it, want to confess to...relieve myself of what I’d done?
I didn’t kill him. I repeat this over and over.
On and on it goes. I blame denial, disbelief really, for me even answering this many of their questions because I know better. All their talk about how they’re trying to help me, how if I confess, they’ll put in a word for me with the prosecutor, is bullshit. They’re here to pressure me into saying what they want to hear, so they can close their case and lock me up.
But I’m quickly past hoping this is some kind of a mistake, or bad dream. I am here, arrested on a charge I would never in a million years have thought I’d be facing. My hands are cuffed and chained to this table. My body is aching from taking too many hits from those who are meant to protect. I’m getting interrogated by detectives who will not stop at anything less than getting a confession from me. But I don’t have shit to confess to. I’ve done nothing wrong. I don’t belong here. This isn’t right. So I do what I should have done the moment I got in this room.
“I want a lawyer,” I say.
Erins scoffs as he stands. “A sure sign of guilt.”
Coney shakes his head, a reproaching look on his face as if I give a damn what he thinks. “We tried to help you. You’ll be on your own now. I hope you realize the truth is your only option.”
“I. Want. A. Lawyer,” I repeat.
“Yeah, yeah.” Erins waves me off, but is still heading towards the door now. “You’ll see your lawyer...when we get around to it.”
I narrow at my eyes at him, knowing they’ll do just that, tie things up for as long as they can. They both leave, and I’m left in the room for what feels like hours, hungry, cold, and tired. Finally, someone comes and unlocks my cuffs from the chain. I groan with the pain that radiates through my body as I rise, both from sitting for so long and from the hits and kicks. But the officer has no time for my pain, pushing me forward so he can escort me from the room to a holding cell.
My cuffs are removed through a slot in the door, and I look around at something I had hoped I’d never have to experience again. A holding cell. The smell of it, that mixture of urine, dirt, and body odor. The rusty, scratched sink with the water dripping enough that I know will be too loud to ignore in the silence that comes when the lights go out. That disgusting open toilet that makes you never want to piss again. There’s a waist high concrete slab that juts out from the wall, a bench and bed all in one. Just looking at it, remembering the coldness, the hardness of it, seeing the carved in names covering it, is bringing back awful memories.
Another hour and I’m taken to the phone. I cringe even bringing the greasy phone to my ear, but dial the number as quickly as I can.
“Please state your full name,” the operator says.
I sigh. “Damir Lewis.”
The call connects and rings a few times before a voice that I expected to be groggy with sleep but is alert and coated in worry comes through the other end.
“Hello?” my dad’s voice answers.
“You have a collect call from... my name repeats... If you would like to accept the charges, please press one. If you...”
A button is immediately pressed, and I hear movement come through the phone.
“Dad?” I ask.
“Damir, what the hell is going on? Where are you?”
“At the police station.”
“Mariah called and told us what happened.”
“How is she?”
“She’s...she’s fine.” The pause tells me she is anything but fine, but I know my dad wouldn’t want to put anything else on me right now. “We already called Terry. He’s on his way down there.”
This is the reason I called my dad instead of Mariah, because I needed him to call Terry, a lawyer they’ve needed to call for me far too many times. I hang my head at the horrible sense of déjà vu filling me. My parents needing to call Terry in the middle of the night to come down to a police station for me. And now, they’ve had to call him again. I hate it. Hate that I have to wonder if some people who knew me when I was younger will now be in a position of asking themselves if I’ve gone back to being that person.
“I didn’t do it dad,” I say.
“Of course you didn’t. It’s utter bullshit. You don’t need to tell me that for me to know it.”
I almost grin at his conviction without knowing a single detail. My dad never fails me.
“Put this in the bag.” I hear my mom’s voice instruct.
“Wha- Where are you guys going?” I ask, but I already know. I know.
“Your mother and I are coming too.”
“No, Dad. I don’t want Mom to see me in a cell or jail again. Please.”
I can’t take that on top of everything else. I made my mom a promise I would never be here again after the last time. Yet here I am, making a collect call from inside a police station, looking at worse charges than I was ever arrested on before.
“There’s nothing that you guys can do anyway.” I continue to explain. “I probably won’t even see Terry until morning, which means I’m not getting arraigned until probably Friday. You won’t even be able to visit me until I’m moved to county. Please Dad.”
There’s silence for a few seconds.
“For now. We’ll stay here for now.”
“Thank—” I begin to say, but he cuts me off.
“But we both know your mother will not be deterred for long.”
“I know, but I just... I don’t want her to have to see me here again, Dad. You either. It’s shameful.”
“What the hell do you have to be ashamed about Son? You did nothing wrong. You didn’t do a damn thing to be where you are. Don’t you dare let them make you ashamed when you don’t deserve to feel that. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Dad.”
An officer waves for me to wrap my call up.
“I have to go, Dad. I’ll call you as soon as I can. Thank for calling Terry, and tell Mariah I’m okay. ”
“Alright. I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
“And you keep your head up. The truth always comes out, Son.”
“Yeah.”
I hang up, trying to let his words seep into my body, but if the truth is what matters, then why the hell am I even here right now? It’s easy for my mind to jump to assuming this all starts and ends with Miller, with how gleeful he was to finally have a reason to arrest me again, but how could he have orchestrated all of this? Someone very clearly really did kill Stanley, and I know it damn sure wasn’t me, so then who? And why are the police connecting any dots whatsoever to me? If this is Miller, maybe even Higgins, or multiple officers, then what does that mean for Stanley’s murder? Did they have something to do with that as well to have made everything lead back to me? Or when they found Stanley murdered, did they look for one of the people closest to him and found an easy target in me, finally finding a reason to give me the retribution they had been promising me for years?
None of it makes sense and I can only shake my head while the officer leads me back to the holding cell and uncuffs me. He closes the door to the dark room, the only light now coming from a tiny window over the sink. I sit on the slab, barely noticing the cold creeping in from it as I lean forward to hold my head in my hands.
How the hell did I end up here?
Even though my mind is racing, I lay down, staring up into the darkness of the cell while my back protests being on such a hard surface. My worry for Mariah and my parents, my sorrow for the loss of Stanley, it all fills me, threatening to consume me whole if I let it.
And I’m so tempted to let it. To just let myself fall into the despair I feel creeping it. But my dad’s words drift through my mind. Not to give up, that the truth will prevail. I have too much to fight for. Keeping my promise to my mom. Not having to see my dad through a glass window. Mariah and the future I want with her. My business. My freedom. I can’t afford to lose any of these things, so I can’t afford to even consider not fighting right now.
Eventually exhaustion makes my eyelids heavy and even though I have a lot to figure out, and so many unanswered questions, I let them drift closed. I hope at least in my sleep, I can leave this cell.
I hear a loud banging, and my eyes blink open. Nope, not a bad dream. I’m actually in a cold ass cell, on a concrete slab, arrested for murder. I lay there for a while, staring up at the filthy ceiling wondering what the hell is going to happen now. The cell door opens, and an officer waves for me to get up.
“Your lawyer’s here,” he tells me.
I nod and slowly stand up. He handcuffs me and walks me down the hallway back to the interrogation room I was in last night. Terry gives me a small smile when I sit down across from him. He waits until the officer leaves the room and closes the door before he speaks.
“Well I certainly didn’t ever expect to see you in handcuffs again,” he says.
“You and me both, Terry. But thank you for coming.”
“Of course. I came as soon as your father called, but they wouldn’t let me see you last night. Told me to come back this morning.”
“How is he? My mom?”
“They’re okay. We need to focus on your arraignment.”
I take a deep breath and he continues.
“You already know how this goes. You’ll enter a plea, the judge will set a future court date, and set bail, if you’re getting bail. And you really do need to prepare yourself for them denying that based on your charge.”
My head drops forward. “Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
“You know I’ll always give you the truth, no matter how hard it is for you to hear. You’re a black man charged with murder. The odds of you getting bail, or a bail anyone can afford, are pretty slim.”
“I know. What else?”
“What did they ask you during the interrogation?”
“The same questions again and again. Why did I do it? Over drugs, over money, a mistake. I just kept saying I didn’t kill him. When they kept trying to sell me the whole ‘we’re trying to help you’ line, I asked for a lawyer.”
“You know better than to even have been in that room for a second without asking for a lawyer Damir.”
“I know. I just... I couldn’t actually even believe that I was in there at first. It all felt like some big ass mistake until I got my head on right.”
“You don’t talk to anyone without me present again. Understand?” When I nod, he continues, “I’ll get the evidence after the arraignment, and then I can get down to the business of preparing an argument to have this whole case thrown out. Did they present any evidence to you during the interrogation?”
“None.”
“Then that means they don’t have anything solid, or not much. They would have used it to try and get a confession.”
“Then how the hell am I even in here?”
“Because someone convinced a judge that whatever they do have is enough to put you behind bars.”
“Unbelievable.” I shake my head. “Even when I get my shit together and keep my fucking head down, I still end up here.”
“But you won’t be staying here. Not if I have anything to say about it. And we both know, I always have a whole lot to say.” He grins.
I smile. “This is true. Do you know when the arraignment is?”
“Tomorrow. Today, they’re transferring you to the county jail, and then I’ll see you when they bring you to the courthouse tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Terry.”
“Anytime. Well no, not anytime, but this one last time hopefully.”
“Hope.” I scoff. “Yeah.”
“I’ll call your dad and let him know they’re moving you and about the arraignment.”
“He’ll try to come. Don’t let him. I don’t want my mom to see me like this again. I made a promise to her that she wouldn’t, and I don’t wanna break it.”
He nods. “I’ll try, but you know how you mother is.”
Now that makes me chuckle. “Yeah, I do.”
Terry looks at the door before asking, “Those bruises... How many times has that happened?”
“Too many,” I answer. “I’ll be fine though.”
“I know you will. We’re gonna overcome this. Soon I’ll have everything I need to pick this case apart and get you out of here.”
I nod as he stands up and knocks on the door. When the officer appears, he comes over to me and takes my arm in his hand, standing me up.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Terry says as I’m walked out of the room.
“Yeah.”
When I get back to my cell, there’s now a tan tray waiting on the edge of the sink, with a carton of orange juice and clearly cold oatmeal on it. Although I’m so hungry my stomach is burning at this point, I can’t handle eating that crap. I chug the orange juice in two gulps and put it back on the tray. Lunch is a sandwich on stale bread with a small bottle of water. That I do eat when the thought hits me that the food at county might be even worse.
A little while after I’m done eating, they come and collect everyone from the holding cells and walk us to the bus outside. Sitting in that seat all along the bumpy ride feels like the Devil is driving me to hell. And the worst part is I didn’t do a single fucking thing. Yet, here I am, looking like another prisoner who says they’re innocent, riding on the bus to jail.
Once we get inside the county jail, we’re uncuffed and told to strip. It’s cold as hell in this room, but I’m somehow guessing that complaint would fall on deaf ears, so I strip along with everyone else, then receive a new set of clothes to put on. A raggedy ass pair of underwear and socks, an orange jumpsuit, and a barely hanging on pair of sandals.
After everyone is dressed, we’re walked to different cells, me ending up in the one right next to the stairs in the auditorium like block. When I walk in, a slim, tall older man turns around, a hesitant look on his face.
“The door opens at meal time,” the officer speaks his first and last words before the door closes behind me.
I look over at the bed, the folded up sheets and thin pillow waiting on the bottom bunk, and start to walk towards it.
“I don’t want any type of trouble going on in here,” the man says.
“And you won’t find any with me,” I return.
“John,” he tells me his name as he sits at the desk across the cell.
“Damir.”
“Dinner’s the worst here, so good luck with that.”
Now, I’m a little relieved I ate that sandwich. I put the sheet on the bed and lay down, staring up at the top bunk when a paper slides under the door. John doesn’t move to get it, so I do. It’s paperwork to fill out for visitation. After borrowing a pen from John, which he watches me use as if I can actually go somewhere with it, I fill out the paperwork, pushing down the anger that I even have to get visits here, and put it at the end of my bed.
The door is opened for dinner, and I grab the paper before leaving out the cell. I hand the paper to the officer sitting behind the only desk on the block. He waves me away without a word and I go to stand in the line for dinner. Even the smells coming from ahead of me are disgusting, but the look of what I think is supposed to be meatloaf is even worse. I take the tray and walk to an empty table on the right of the room. John comes and sits with me as I poke at my food. I guess I’ll at least eat the corn and what passes for barely mashed potatoes.
Thirty minutes later, the trays are cleared and the TV’s come on, playing a football game. I watch it with unseeing eyes, thinking about how the hell I’m going to get myself out of this situation. I have an alibi, but will it be enough? My thoughts still plague me when I reach my cell and lay on my stiff excuse for a mattress. What’s going to happen at arraignment? Am I going to get bail? Will I be sitting in here until there’s a trial?
It’s hard to even fathom that I’m going to be standing in a courtroom, entering a plea for a murder charge. Murder. Of someone I considered a friend. And then it really hits me, that whoever actually did murder Stanley is still out there, getting away with what he or she did because the cops are too busy trying to pin it on me.
“Good Lord,” John’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
I look up towards the above bed and realize it’s dark in the cell. When the hell did the lights go out?
“I can hear you thinking from up here.” His head peeks down from the top bunk. “There’s nothing that’s gonna change tonight, so turn your mind off and go to sleep.”
“Yeah, that sounds easy.”
“I’m sitting right where you are, so I know what you’re thinking, but it’s pretty useless honestly. All that matters is what happens in that courtroom.”
“Thanks... I think.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles as he moves fully back onto his bunk.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come for a long time. Instead I picture a beautiful smile flashing at me over a shoulder with the tip of a butterfly wing on it.
