PART 1 -- A Purring Cat
The two officers looked at the suspect through the one-way mirror.
She was young. Early twenties, maybe less. A petite figure, cloaked in a heavy felt blanket, crouched on the cold metal chair. She was wearing a black lace mask over her eyes, underneath short flaming red hair. With her head bowed, she stared at her wiggling toes beneath the blanket.
Captain Parker sighed. He was the kind of guy who needed five coffees to get through a daytime shift. The kind of guy who needed extra large ashtrays. Possibly two of them. And he was going through a damn night shift, he was out of cigarettes, the intern with his coffee was taking forever and he had a criminally insane girl locked in his interrogation room.
"Why the mask?" He asked, massaging his forehead to keep a growing headache at bay.
The nearby officer straightened up and cleared his voice. His name was Oliver Grayson, and he was a well-shaven young recruit with dark hair and green eyes. Looking at him, Parker always thought: "A square jaw like that might get you pussy, but in the force it just lands you in the ICU." It didn't help that he was showing far more green than his eyes ever could.
Oliver said: "I'm afraid she won't tell, sir."
"I mean, why haven't you taken it off?"
"Anderson tried, sir. He, uh, nearly got his eye clawed out, sir."
"So handcuff her."
"We... we did. But the doctor, he said the mask has to stay on."
"It doesn't look like it's holding her head together, so the mask has to go."
"Uh, the doc said she needs the mask. Says she's probably traumatized, you know. The mask is supposed to be keeping her sane, or something like that."
"Sane? Sane as in, scratching away at a police officer? As in, roaming around town at night stark naked?"
Officer Grayson didn't reply. He just swallowed and nervously broke eye contact. Thankfully, a hectic intern entered the room and got the captain's full attention. Parker quickly took his coffee mug and clipboard from the boy and sent him away, ignoring each and every one of his attempts at a conversation.
Captain Parker entered the interrogation room. The masked girl didn't seem to acknowledge his presence in the least. He sat at the transparent table, right in front of her, put down his clipboard and sipped his steaming coffee.
He started reading out loud:
"Trespassing. Indecent exposure. Assaulting a police officer. This is pretty serious stuff. You know that, miss?"
The masked girl looked up at the captain. Underneath the black lace, her blue eyes sparkled. Her delicate features looked sweet, but inexplicably unnerving. She smiled. He couldn't help but notice, she was wearing lip gloss.
Her lips parted slightly, and she said nothing.
Captain Parker quickly looked away, facing back to his clipboard. He put down his coffee and read on:
"It says here your body shows no signs of pysical harm, besides small cuts and bruises you got from walking around town barefoot. Did you do it on purpose, miss? Why would you do that?"
The girl's smile widened just enough to reveal a sliver of sweet, cherry tongue behind white teeth. She tilted her head to one side, displaying a supple, luscious neck made of alabaster skin. The captain's eyes raced from her lips to her neck, then hit the brown felt blanket.
He remembered that was all she had to cover herself with.
She got one foot off the chair and out of the blanket, then placed it, tip-toed, on the linoleoum floor. By the time the captain noticed, the felt was once again covering her modesty.
So she wasn't barefoot. She was wearing thigh-high stockings, black and translucent, with a lace hem. The stocking was damaged around the sole and knee, with bruised skin underneath. Parker figured it didn't make much difference walking around barefoot or like that. Then he thought about the knee damage, and pictured her kneeling down on the ground.
Hiding?
Naked?
The masked girl giggled. Startled, the captain realized he'd been staring. He cleared his voice, scowled, and moved on with his interrogation:
"Look, we're trying to help you here. If something, anything happened to you, we need you to cooperate with us to catch who did it. If nothing happened you still need to cooperate, because things are looking grim. You get that?"
She arched her back and rolled her head backwards. The blanket opened slightly, showing a perfect line of skin from her neck, to her collarbone, to her sternum, framed in just a hint of youthful, firm curves.
The captain shut his eyes and massaged his temples. His headache was getting worse. His wedding band was itching. He needed a cigarette. He sighed. Eyes still shut, he paused until he got his cool back, then asked:
"Can you even speak? You're not a damn mute, are you?"
Again, she giggled. "No", she said. Her voice was low but feminine. Warm and comforting like a hot bubble bath. "I can speak just fine." She spoke slowly. Every word a warm secret, lovingly crafted by her tongue and lips.
He thought she sounded like a purring cat.
"Good, now we're getting somewhere." He opened his eyes and asked "Come on, tell me your name."
Coyly, she bit her lip and shuffled under the blanket. Soon, her cuffed hands were out in the open. She seemed to be making an effort to keep the blanket in place with the rest of her body, but it still slid off of her right shoulder, revealing a flowery tattoo sleeve, green with some red here and there. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to go all the way from her elbow to her back.
Holding the blanket with her armpit and elbows, she showed her cuffed hands to the captain and smiled. "Take these off, and I'll tell you anything you want to hear."
