Innocent... Until Proven Guilty

The Last Interrogation

Looking around this room, I slowly come to the realization that this is the same interrogation room I was in last time, only this time I am not here of my own volition. I know this time I am not going home, I can't repeat my same pattern of fleeing the state, assuming a new identity, dying and cutting my hair. This time I am trapped and I am not the victim. This time I am the suspect. With a small smile on my face, I silently wonder who finally figured it out.

The door opens and the same detective from last time walks in, this time she is alone and doesn't have the same sympathy displayed on her face as the first time I met her. She walks slowly but deliberately to the chair across from me and sits down and folds her hands over each other on the table.

"Do you remember me Ms. Tabbs?" she asks me as if I would have forgotten her in the two weeks since I last saw her. I stay silent but nod my head not ready to speak to her; I want to know how much she knows before I begin to tell my long story. I know I should be scared that someone finally caught on to what I have dedicated my life too but at the same time its thrilling to finally be able to tell my story and explain the intricacies I poured all my blood, sweat, and tears into.

"Well as you know, we originally brought you into the station after the murder of your boyfriend Thomas Howard."

"Murder? Don't you mean voluntary manslaughter, in a case of self defense?" I say attempting keep up the façade a little longer.

"No Ms. Tabbs, I mean murder, one of four I believe you've committed over the past 10 years, and possibly one other one, even though someone took the blame, I believe they did it to protect you." She's staring at me with those same green eyes that I knew I recognized those few weeks ago. The look in her eyes tells me that she has all my cases, and has studied them and noticed each and every detail that's the same with all my victims.

Once again I stay silent, weighing my options. I could pretend I have no idea what she's talking about and continue my façade of innocence, or I can take control of the narrative. I slowly come to decide that its time for the world to finally know my name.

"What makes you believe I committed these crimes?" I ask her with a look of cool disinterest on my face. I can see she's getting slightly aggravated that I haven't begun to get uncomfortable yet.

"When you were first brought into the station I saw your face, and I thought you looked familiar somehow even though I was pretty sure we had never met before. After you left the station with your friend I stayed up most of the night trying to remember where I had seen you before," as she was talking a small smile started to play around her lips and suddenly she didn't look like the soft woman I first assumed she was. She looked like a predator who finally trapped her elusive prey. "When I was a rookie police officer, there was a young woman brought into the station one night after telling police she killed her abusive boyfriend, she killed him by taking a kitchen knife and cutting his throat. Starting to sound familiar?" she asked me.

I knew without a doubt that she was talking about Matthew Davis, my second victim. I always killed the men the same way as a tribute to my very first murder. They had to die in the kitchen from a knife wound to their neck. The first time I killed, I killed a man with a knife to the back, but as I got older I realized if I stabbed someone in the back, that it would cast a shadow of doubt on whether it was self-defense. If I cut someone's throat, it always looked as if they were rushing towards me and in the heat of the moment I had no other choice but to pick up a knife and swing it to stop the oncoming assault.