URIAH

Wanting

Chapter 16

"Take a seat, ma'am."

I walk into the room like a wobbly two year old. Scared and uncertain. I close the weird dark turquoise coloured door behind me and I sit in the chair in front of his crowded desk.

I know Portia just died and I know I'm sitting in the sheriff's office being accused for her death, but all I can think about is how much his office needs cleaning and organization. Holy crap is he a hoarder!

"Miss Rose," he says snapping my neck back to look at him and not the shelves and shelves of crooked books and loose papers behind me.

"Yes."

"What happened in that car today?"

I scoff. "The whole story or just from when that man came up to our car?"

"From midnight to now, what has gone on in that car, Miss Rose?"

He comes off as pretty harsh, but I can't blame him. He probably thinks my questions are just to play him.

"We left the parking lot we were sleeping in at around 6 AM. It was smooth sailing until about noon when Portia-"

"The deceased?"

"Yes," I mumble. "The deceased," I find difficulty saying. "She started groaning and moaning when she finally started yelling. And I mean screeching. It had us confused and worried and she was pregnant so we really didn't know what was happening to her. Nathan was really deconcentrated..."

And I continue on with how Nathan almost slammed into the Mercedes until the part where she poured water onto me which he really got a kick out of.

"I guess that's why your hair is such a mess," he barely gets out because of his laughing. I can't help, but laugh with him, because he's enjoying this a lot. And he's right. My hair is a mess. I have a couple of strands that are still frozen because they were the most wet when I went outside.

"Yes, okay! I was soaking wet and I had to search for clothes in the trunk in the freezing cold," I enunciate while still chuckling a bit.

"Ooh, that's not good," he says quickly with a very funny grimace.

"No, it wasn't."

When all the fun and games are over, I continue on with the story. I explain to him how the man came out of the car and started the fight and how I thought what killed Portia was a cyanide pill and why. I'm telling them everything.

"You saw her crunch something under her teeth."

"Not to that precision, but I did see the details that implied it. I saw her mouth close tightly and her jaw stretch. Then fizz started coming out and all the knowledge about these kind of things that I had from movies and science classes came rushing to me and I came up with this hypothesis. If there is another toxin but cyanide that could be in the form of a pill, that could be it too. The only one I know is cyanide and that's why I jumped to that conclusion."

"Okay, then. That's all I need to know. Thank you, Sam. You can wait outside."

"Thank you."

I'm surprised by the change in mood. Did I amuse him with my water story? Or impress him with the cyanide? Whatever it was, it got him from calling me ma'am and Miss to actually using my first name.

I walk out and sit on the bench facing the police officer behind the security booth. Every now and then, he takes his eyes off his computer and glances at me. The annoyingly flickering lights above us shine on his dark skinned bald head. It amuses me and I think he notices.