08: Police Interrogation and Detention

  "But Richard Wright, huh? You wouldn't happen to be related to those... Wright Brothers, would ya?"

  Richard smiled softly. His life was over. His life was over. The detective across from him alternated between jokes and threats, but Richard's life was over.

  He had never been arrested before. He had never even given thought to what being arrested was like. He certainly had not expected it to be so boring.

  Richard had arrived at the police station several hours ago, and all he wanted was for the guillotine to finally fall on his throat. When he had first arrived, a kindly older woman had sat him down at a desk and asked him his name, his date of birth, his home address, his profession, the color of his socks. She had grilled him for every detail of his life, which had not amounted to much.

  A flash of light had sealed his fate as his mug shot was taken. It was only then that he realized his life was over. That photo would be entered into every police database in the nation. It would appear on the evening news. The shadow of this madness would follow him for the rest of whatever life he lived.

  He had been thrown into a small cell after that, but he had not even been given time to catch his breath. Before Richard could decide whether he should bash his head into the cell's cement wall, the same bald police officer from the apartment had dragged him into a small room. The same room he now sat in. Had been sitting for at least an hour.

  The portly detective across from Richard pursed his lips. The man had a good-natured face, and even this petulant expression seemed kindly. The man leaned forward, his eyes a window into his pearly white soul.

  "Richard. Richard, brother. I want to help you." Richard almost believed the man. The badge on his chest read Detective Thomas Tudor, and he seemed like a good and honest man. "This situation... None of this makes sense. You don't seem like a bad guy, Richard. And nobody was hurt. You don't know how important that is."

  Richard continued to smile softly. The detective's last comment still confused him. Richard had certainly felt a bullet bite into his flesh. He had known the dread of death, and then he had woken on his back without so much as a scratch. Even the police officers had seemed confused, but the EMTs who later arrived verified that he was unharmed. Like so much else that had happened, it made no sense.

  But his life was over. He had been a nervous wreck when he had first entered the police station. He was ashamed of how terribly he had trembled, how he had tripped over his words.

  And then the camera flash. His mug shot. His doom. His life was over, and he somehow took comfort from knowing that. He had stopped trembling. He did not stammer. He tried not to say anything at all, in fact.

  "What about the girl then?" Detective Thomas Tudor asked. His seat creaked as he shifted his weight. "We just want to get her home, Richard. Who is she? I have a daughter myself, Richard."

  Richard nodded his head as the detective continued to drone on and on. The man was so damn considerate and genuine. Richard almost told him everything. He almost told him something.

  But if he told the truth, he knew that he would end up in a psychiatric hospital.

  If he told lies, he would end up in prison.

  If he told them nothing at all, he would likely still end up in prison, but it may take a little longer to get there. And despite all the headaches of the day, the police station was heated. He had been given a can of root beer and a bag of potato chips. The good life!

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  Richard sat, nodded, and smiled in that small room for what felt like several hours. Three separate detectives spoke with him, but the only thing he ever said was his name and address. After what felt like several hours, an exasperated Detective Thomas Tudor brought him back to cramped cell.

  And he was finally alone.

  Richard had never felt so alone. He stood numbly in the middle of the cell for a minute before he sat down on the steel frame of his new bed. An unhealthy laugh escaped his lips as he rapped his knuckles against the bed. It rang out melodically.

  "My- " Richard began to speak, but then quickly shut his mouth. He was used to talking to himself, but this was not the time for that. He had to assume that the cell was monitored, that anything he said could and would be used against him.

  And so for the hundredth time that day, Richard accepted that his life was over.

  The same giddy emptiness from the night before filled his chest. It almost seemed hard to believe that only yesterday he had marched into the forest for his final birthday bash.

  He was not sure if the cell was soundproof, but he did not hear anyone or anything. He was alone. He was separated from the world. In the many hours of his interrogation and booking, he had wondered about the strangeness of the day. Everything had been real, but how much had been real? The wolf had become a child, and the police wanted to know her name. He had turned the situation over and over in his head, but it made no more sense now.

  And so as he sat in his lonely cell, Richard's thoughts turned instead to how this could have happened. Unemployed. Friendless. Aimless.

  He had gone to college. He had finished a bachelor's degree in finance. He had even worked at an office for three years as a financial analyst. What a waste those three years had been. Perhaps that was when it had all started to fall apart.

  "Pa- " Richard clamped his mouth shut as the chastisement touched his lips. His face flickered with frustration at the little pity party he was throwing himself.

  He took a deep breath and shook away the thought. It did not matter how he had reached this point. There was something far more important that he needed to whine about. A single fear had lurked beneath all others ever since he had been thrown into the police cruiser.

  Because it had been several months since he had last spoken to his family. He had cut off contact in preparation for his final birthday. He had wanted to dampen the impact as much as he could. He had not even wanted them to know.

  And he did not want them to know he had been arrested.

  Richard's fingernails dug into his arms. The fear had been the tickling of a dozen centipedes. He did not want his family to know about the blood, about the woman. It was not embarrassment. It was not even shame. He simply did not want them to care. He did not want them to worry and fret, for them to fume and doom.

  Blood rolled down his arm, and he relaxed his grip. His eyes were ticklish, and he cursed the pity party he continued to throw. Without even realizing it, his bloody hands were clasped together in prayer.

  "I don't want to be here," Richard said softly. He did not want to be arrested. He did not want his mother or his father to pick up the phone and learn he had kidnapped a woman and a child.

  Emotion as rich as prayer filled his chest as he clenched his eyes shut. How much easier everything would have been if he had simply never left the woods.

  After a minute or two, Richard loosed a deep breath and looked up at his cell door. There was a tiny window, one large enough to perhaps slip a meal through. He saw a shape dart past its glass. And then another.

  Richard rose from his steel bed at the unusual flurry of movement. He drew closer to the window and looked outside. Noise reached him as a muffled whisper. The police who ran past his cell wore a mixture of panic and grim determination.

  His first thought was that some terrible accident had occurred. He thought of the police station as a hornet's nest that had just been rattled.

  And then a uniformed body flew through the air and smashed into a wall. Richard blinked several times as the hurled officer stumbled back onto his feet.

  The muffled noises grew louder, and Richard could make out indistinct shouts. Several officers with guns and tasers and batons stumbled into sight. It was as if they were being pushed back down the hallway by some invisible force. All of their faces were vivid portraits of confusion and fear.

  Richard blinked...

  ...and the fox-eared child appeared. He almost did not recognize her. No less than seven police officers pulled and wrestled with her arms, legs, and neck. The fox-eared child was unbothered.

  Her golden-eyed stare latched onto Richard, and he unconsciously took a step back from his cell door.

  "Servant!" the fox-eared child shouted so loudly that he heard her without difficulty.

  Seven police officers were dragged like infants as the fox-eared child marched effortlessly towards Richard's cell. As she came into view, he saw two more chubby officers clutching her ankles. The fox-eared child dragged them without even breaking a sweat.

  "I hath heard thy prayer!" the fox-eared child shouted as she arrived outside his cell. An ear-to-ear grin ran across her face. "Let us return to my shrine!"

  Chapter Eight, but we will soon learn more about the wolf and Richard's new job as her servant.