BEAT ME
In a small town precinct, two officers whooshed their words in each other’s ears so tight, both of their ear hair inappropriately stood at attention. Intimate spit wasn’t meant to be a part of their questioning, and was only a minor distraction compared to the body seated behind the partition of the makeshift interrogation room.
“Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”
“I think she is.”
“Guilty of murder and innocent of a crime? Do you think there is a precedent for this particular type of justifiable homicide?”
“Don’t know Guy. Damn. Hell if I know.”
“Ask her to explain what happened again. Maybe she left something out and it will make sense on her second go around.”
Five steps later, they tried hard to keep their eyes everywhere else but on the suspect, ceiling tiles, posters, gun racks, unsure if they would have the balls to chase her should she make a run for it.
“Ah, excuse me Miss Drake. Would you mind repeating what you just explained to Officer Flannery and me, and please be sure to take your time and use your memory to the best of your ability.”
“So, like I said. He had it bad for me, if you know what I mean.” Still not looking at her, neither of them saw the cute way she cupped her slender fingers over her mouth. “His parents were away for the weekend. Acapulco I think. Mexico. Or was it Vegas. Does that matter? He asked me to come over at 8 p.m. It was a Friday, no maybe Saturday. I forgot. Does that matter? It was a long time ago. He put on Back to the Future, cause I told him that was my favorite movie and he even made popcorn, buttered, I think. Does that matter?”
The suspect paused long enough for Officer Flannery to say, “Just continue please and let us do the worrying about what matters, OK?”
“OK, OK. I just want to get things right. So where was I. Popcorn. Maybe it was the kind that goes in the microwave. We were watching the part where George McFly falls out of the tree. I like that part, and I laughed real hard, so did he, and maybe our laughter was what broke up our obvious tension, cause it was then that he got up the nerve to make a move. Second base. Ya know?” Still they had no idea how cute she looked when she was being coy. What would their wives think if they were in the room was looming over both of their minds.
“And then one thing lead to another, and then it happened.”
“That’s it. The “IT” that happened. Please make us understand. You said you admit to leaving him unresponsive, and that you didn’t mean for him to die, so how could second base be responsible for his death?”
“OK. OK. Let me explain. Have you seen these girls?”
And this time they had to look at them as she pointed to the gorilla in the room. 40 DDD’s. They were doing their job. Collecting evidence.
“He told me it was his biggest fantasy to stick his face in there,” she pointed at them again, “So I let him stick his head under my blouse and I just continued on with watching McFly. Next thing I know, Johnny is not moving at all and I say, hey Johnny, wake up, sort of insulted and all because no guy ever falls asleep when they are around me, and it was then that I wiggled myself away from him to see a shade a gray to his skin that weren’t there before he dove in, so that’s when I figured I better run. I put a pillow over his face before I left to make it look like an accident or suicide, and really Mr., I mean Officer, it was an accident. Not my fault. And I’ve been keeping this secret for so long I almost forgot about it. In a way I’m glad to get it off my chest, oops, wrong word, conscience. My conscience. No one ever even knew I was at his house, except for Julie. I told my parents I was at her house. And really we could have just let this be if it wasn’t for Julie opening up her damn mouth after all these years. She’s the only one that knew I was seeing Johnny that night. I wonder what made her talk after all these years?”
It wasn’t as if she didn’t invite the two men to look at her two skin covered pillows, aka murder weapons during her explanation.
″Beat me…..,” Flannery blurted, thinking with the little head instead of his bald brain. With a slight pause, still staring, he was poked by his partner, and snapped out of his hypnotic knocker trance, both of them moving their eyes back up to the ceiling. Could Flannery say it was the drool sliding off his hanging tongue that caused him to drop a defining “s”?
“I mean beats me?” adding an important "s", correcting himself, turning 50 Shades of red.