A secret is a secret | ONC 2024

10 | The interview

I parked my car in a parking slot in the visitor parking lot just like the police officer had instructed on the call from the other day. I took a deep breath in, preparing myself  for what was waiting for me inside the police station. I opened the driver's door and hopped down from my car.

I locked my car, and started to walk towards the entrance where my lawyer was going to meet me. I pulled my phone out from my purse and started checking my unread text messages. Sitting right on top there was a text message from my boyfriend followed by other text messages from Beck and Cyrus that they had sent to our group chat. I went ahead and read their text messages.

Alf: Lena, baby, call me when you are done.

Beck: Lenora, I wish you the best of luck today!

Cyrus: Good luck! Please let us know how it went Lenny.

I smiled at their text messages before placing my phone inside my purse once again as I walked towards the entrance. Standing near the entrance, there was a man fully dressed in a black suit and he was holding a black suitcase in his left hand. I had a feeling that he must be the lawyer. That man looks like the one I saw on the company's website. Before calling him, I read all of his reviews. All of them were good reviews, I needed to make sure he was a good lawyer.

"Good morning, are you Mr. Davis?" I asked him after I had approached him.

"Hello, yes, I am. You must be Miss Keegan?" My lawyer asked me, extending his hand in my direction.

"That's me, nice to meet you." I replied to his question, shaking his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Keegan." Mr. Davis pulled his hand away as we finished shaking our hands. "During our call, you mentioned this is your first time being called to a police station."

After introductions were made, the two of us began walking towards the entrance of the police station. "Yes, I am nervous, I don't know what to expect during this questioning."

Mr. Davis opened the door, holding it for me, allowing me to walk in first. I walked inside, taking in this new environment, a male police officer was standing behind the front counter.

"I did my research about your case after our call ended. This police department has concluded it was an accidental death sadly. The police officers working on the case want to cover all of their bases before permanently closing the case. I understand this is your first time being nervous is normal. Miss Keegan, I don't think you are a person of interest or otherwise they would have arrested you already, that is a good thing. What you need to do is tell the police officer the same thing that you told our call. I will tell you what you can answer and what not answer. Do you understand Miss Keegan?"

I looked at him, nodding at him, listing everything that he was telling me. "Yes, I do."

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"Good morning, I am Officer Perez, I will be questioning you today." The female officer introduced herself as she sat down in the mental chair in front of my lawyer and me. She had placed a file and two water bottles down on the metal table. "Before we start, I will let you know that this interview is being recorded."

My lawyer and I made eye contact for a brief period before he opened up his suitcase, retrieving a notepad and a black pen. My lawyer set them down on the metal table as he looked at the police officer. "Good morning, Officer Perez, I am Mr. Davis. I am representing Miss Keegan today."

"Miss Keegan, we are going to start easy." Office Perez started the questioning, looking me straight in the eye. "What were you doing on the night of January 13?"

I took a small breath in, looking at my lawyer. He nodded at me, giving me the go-ahead to respond to the question. "On that night, I was on the beach with my boyfriend and two best friends."

The police officer wrote down my answer before she looked back at me. "What are the names of your boyfriend and your two best friends?"

I started playing with my hands underneath the table without looking away from the police officer. "My boyfriend's name is Alfred Micah Birch. My best friend's names are Beatrice Isla Milton and Cyrus Deacon Jacques."

The police officer wrote down the response to her question once again. "Okay, what were the four of you doing on the beach that night?"

"We were watching the sunset in front of the shore before leaving the next morning." I responded to her question as the memories from that night started entering my mind. "We didn't leave the beach until it was a little past midnight."

"Are any of you drinking that night?" I pushed away those unwelcome memories to the back of my mind as the police officer asked me another question.

"Yeah, Beatrice, Cyrus, Alfred, and I were drinking that night." I looked at the police officer as I responded to her question.

"I understand that Beatrice, Cyrus, Alfred, and you are over twenty-one and college students?" She asked me after finishing writing down my answer to the previous question.

"Yeah, we are almost reaching our mid-twenties. The four of us are in our senior year." I responded to her question as I began bouncing my leg up and down underneath the table.

Like the police officer did before she finished writing down my answers to her questions before returning to look at me. "Okay, Miss Keegan, while you were on the beach, did you see anything suspicious?"

Unlike the other times, I looked at my lawyer and wrote everything down about this interview. He looked at me after he finished writing and he slowly nodded at me. "Umm, no I didn't see anything suspicious while I was on the beach."

"Mhm." The police officer said, opening up the file and placing three pictures of the beach in front of us. "These pictures were taken at the beach. As you can see, there are five different footprints, not four like in this first picture. Do you know who the fifth person is?"

"My client already said that four people were on the beach including her. The fifth footprint could belong to someone who was at the beach earlier that night before them." My lawyer spoke up, looking at the pictures with a serious expression.

The police officer looked at my lawyer instead of me. Before speaking, the police officer placed a new photograph on the table. The picture was a close shot of a pair of black Converse on a body.

"We thought so too, but the footprints are the same on the shoes of the young man who died. If the footprints were old they must be washed away by the water of the shore or the wind. These footprints were as recent as the other four footprints. Miss Keegan, we have reason to believe that you were one of the last people to see the young male alive."

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Final chapter word count: 1,215

Total book word count: 13,623