The Last Look

“Please tell us what happened, miss.” The two detectives stood before me taking close note of my words. They had arrived a few minutes arealier and introduced themselves as Detectives April Benz and Edger Halleck. I lay in the hospital bed trying to remember the previous night. It wasn’t easy, my head was throbbing.

“Please don’t stress out my patient too much” The doctor told the detectives as she checked my vitals for what felt like the 100th time.

“As mentioned, we will be quick,” The detective taking notes told her. The doctor nodded and left the room.

“Maybe we should wait,” The detective closer to me said. He looked nervously at his partner.

“Why don’t we ask her how she feels?” The other detective replied, before she stared towards me.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I managed. Truthfully I was not doing so well, but I rather get this done now, otherwise I was sure these two would not leave me alone. “It was a normal night. I had a late shift at work. I was walking back to my apartment,” I explained. My mind buzzed as I tried to remember all the details.

“I live about 6 blocks from work, so I walk home all the time. It’s normally not a big deal. The area isn’t bad, I carry pepper spray normally,” I explained.

“What do you mean normally? Detective Benz asked me looking up from her notepad.

“I… I must have left it at home?” I said mind raising as details began to return. I never left my house without the pepper spray. It was always in my backpack. I would check every few days, but when I needed it last night it wasn’t there.”

“You seem to not be so sure of that,” Benz asked.

“Well it’s just not something I forget, I guess it must have fallen… or,” I paused.

“Or?”

“Or… there was this man; at my store,when I first came in he… he bumped into me… He apologized but I didn’t see his face. He bumped into the side of my backpack.”

“His size, his outfit; is there anything that reminds you of the man that attacked you?” Asked Detective Benz.

“I...I’m not sure,” I replied, doing my best to remember.

Detective Benz looked like she wanted to push further but Detective Halleck interrupted, “April she’s been through a big trauma, be a little easier on her.”

“I would Edger but any details we can get, will make things much easier in the long run,” Detective Benz snapped. She then turned back to me, “So this man, did you notice him staying at your shop, was there anyone suspicious.

“I was at the register, so I didn’t notice him. We were busy though, it’s fishing season so we get a lot of people. Someone could be watching me and if they didn’t make it too obvious it could be missed. No one said anything though.”

“You left at closing though, so you would have noticed if someone had stayed in the store, right?” Asked Detective Halleck.

“No, I left two hours before close, it was friday. We are open till midnight a few times during the week in summer. This is the first year, the boss’s idea. To be fair we still get more business then you would think at those hours. Enough where he could have followed me from there.

“So he was following you for a while?” asked Detective Benz.

“The streets are pretty busy, but I noticed him behind me about five blocks from home. I like to pick up bagels for the morning on the way home. Instead of just going straight and making a turn or two I end up doing this weird pattern. I had a weird feeling a bit before that so I was keeping an eye behind me, and I noticed him. I only realized he was following me when I stopped at the shop and I saw him standing a ways back outside.” I explained.

“Then what happened,” encouraged Detective Benz

“After that when I left the shop, I got on the phone and called a friend and pretended she was my boyfriend, pretending he was waiting for me at home. Told her I would be home in five minutes, That I had just stopped at the bagel shop. I hoped that would scare him. Figured at the least it would tell her something was up. Which she did figure it out. It didn’t scare him though. He attacked and well, luckily my friend called the cops which did actually scare him off when the sirens got close.” I sighed.

“You didn’t see his face though?” asked Detective Benz.

“He was wearing a big cowboy hat, made sure not to look me in the eye,” I explained. “Right before the cops came he hit me hard in the back of the head, I almost blacked out, his hat fell off,” I said staring ahead of me.

“And that’s the last thing you remember?” asked Detective Halleck.

“No,” I replied,I took a deep breath. “It took me a second but I was able to lift my head up to see if the guy was still there.” A memory had come back his last hit, his hat fell. Right before I hit the ground I caught a glimpse of his face.

I looked at Detective Halleck dead in the eye’s preparing myself, “And when I looked again, you were gone.”