beyondsense (beyondsense) wrote in repose, @ 2016-05-10 11:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, iris morgenstern, manning thorsen |
Iris, Manning, Detectives: Police Station Log
Who: Iris, Manning, and police detectives
What: A revised statement about the egg hunt
Where: The Police Station
When: Fuzzy time, some recent morning
Warnings/Rating: Talk of injuries and violence
She went right away in the morning, not wanting to drag out the day with worry that would only put her in a worse state of mind. Going through the morning motions was almost mechanical - showering, getting dressed (simple, casual, a call-back to times of grey knit dresses and cardigans, hair in a braid and none of the powdered flour evidence of doughs and batters), convinced to eat something by the dual presence of Manning and TJ (oatmeal from a cartoon bowl, bananas from small sticky fingers, milk). It helped to fortify her while Manning drove the both of them to the station, a short ride in a large truck.
It felt like judge and jury and executioner when she climbed down out of the cab upon arrival, each step feeling like a sentence, pulling her down. She had a manila envelope clutched in her hands (knuckles white, tense, putting a wrinkle in the heavy stock at the corners), and she clung to it when she approached the desk to ask for the detective that had originally interviewed her, trying not to feel the weight of the attention of everyone in the station. Trying not to look back at Manning, to move forward on her own so that it was evident that she was doing this under her own will and decision.
This second time around, she accepted the offer of water, tense but clearly lucid, eyes bright with it. And when she finally sat at that same interview table in the same interview room, she placed the envelope (closed but not sealed) on the table before the questions even started, nudging it smoothly with the touch of fingertips toward the detective like it was some shady deal's offer. Or, more accurately, like it contained things she didn't quite want to touch.
I would like to give a more accurate account of what happened the night of the egg hunt, she said.
I would also like to provide these photos that were taken of me in the days following it, she said.
Inside the envelope were a number of pictures, obviously printed off a home printer, some different sizes as the edges had been trimmed. Often, the trimmed edges appear on the more candid photos, the edge of the picture showing a smaller, chubby arm or leg, a curl of fine blonde. Manning's daughter, she would say in explanation. I didn't think you needed her face too. The photos themselves show a woman who has been injured - a brace around one wrist in most photos, removed to show the purple bruising for some close-ups; scraped palms and knees, the scabbing on them fresh enough to still be considered open, glossy red pattern of gravel within the skin; greyblue shadows edged in green, ringing the slim column of her neck; one photo (that she tries not to look at, blushing slightly) of her curled up to sleep on a sofa while using something plaid as a pillow, canine nose resting on the edge of the cushion as if its owner is watching her sleep, her clothing rucked up from uneasy tossing, enough skin revealed over bony hip to show a purple bruise nearly the size of her palm.
Once the photos were looked through, at the prompting of the detective Iris began her second try at the story of what had happened that night. Starting from the beginning, from meeting Sam at the registration table, she gave a quiet but mostly steady recall of it. From fearing the mob that was chasing them, admitting she thought they were after her and Sam's insistence on keeping her safe. The run to find a place to hide and being tripped, scraping her hands and knees. Finding the trailer to hide in as the mob (she paused to reiterate how real the mob had seemed) circled outside. The man coming in. Finding her hiding spot. (Her recitation broke a bit as the memories replayed behind her eyes - the dull response of talking about trauma, not the practiced monologue of a lie.) The man pulling her out, falling on her wrist, being pushed against the cabinet. The loss of air, the loss of vision. Hoping that at least Sam would be safe. That was her hope. She needed that to be true. She needed Sam safe. She repeated it several times before catching herself, taking a quiet breath and then continuing.
She admitted that her memories were uncertain around the time that the man was choking her, that her next awareness was accompanied by the bright slick of blood, Sam's voice yelling at the man to let her sister go. The knife that was scarlet and silver and dropped somewhere as they ran away.
Another pause after that statement, and Iris' hands were clenched tight in her lap, fingers looking like a jumble of bones clinging to each other, bloodless from the pressure. It was easier then, on the downhill slide of the night, to talk about the laundromat - or what they'd thought was the laundromat - nothing looking right as they moved through town searching for the police station. Finding the field of flowers and feeling… good. Laying in them and talking until Sam went to go look for Cris ("the sheriff", she clarified, as if there could be a doubt who she was talking about), leaving Iris there to fall asleep until the pre-grey of dawn found her in the orchards north of the church.
And that was her statement. It was obvious through the whole thing that she wasn't comfortable, that she would rather be anywhere else than the police station. That she was worried. But her gaze, when it was lifted to the detective's face (which happened often enough, brief but clear glances) was honest and sure. There was fragility to her (there always was), and at times she had looked nearly ill, but there was no uncertainty or faltering as there had been the first time.
Silent then, before a final bit of honesty, delivered with her gaze lifted to look directly at the detective, quiet and soft but not uncertain:
I felt guilty. We'd thought the mob was after me, and it makes me feel like the whole thing was my fault. That nothing would have happened at all if I hadn't been there. I get… intense… about wanting my sister to be okay because of how guilty I feel about our pasts. She didn't remember what had happened, and she and Cris have the new baby and she seemed to be doing… good. And I thought that between the two of us… On a scale, I have less to lose right now. That's why I did it.
And then:
I don't know what would have happened. If she wouldn't have. I don't know what that man would've done. I don't… I don't remember him stopping. I know he was big. I know I couldn't have fought him off. A gesture at herself, indicating how aware she was of her inability to fight anyone. I know what it feels like to… not have enough air. I know he wasn't stopping. It wasn't like when someone's doing it temporarily… A stutter stop at her own words, a look down at her hands for a moment, for a breath as she gathered her thoughts again and then looked back up at the detective. I do believe that Sam saved my life.
It was all changed. It was more than they'd gotten before. Iris' testimony. The deputy didn't know if it was too little, too late, but, with the addition of the photographs (which helped corroborate what Morgenstern was saying), she thought it had a chance of helping the other sister. There wasn't much she could do, once it was all over, other than tell Morgenstern thank you for coming in, and recommend she speak with Samantha's lawyer. The recommendation wasn't what she was supposed to do, but the deputy found herself sympathetic to the convoluted plight of the two girls.—The new evidence would be added to the case and would be passed off to the prosecutor. It was all they could do. She hoped it would help.
Police stations were a necessity in a civilized society, or so Manning had been told before. They held no particular worry for him, no memory that was good, nor any that were bad - they simply were - like taxes. And not far from where Iris was handing over the photographs he'd taken and giving her revised testimony to the events of that night, he was giving his own.
They began with finding Iris that morning. The way she looked. What she'd said. What she said in the following days about that night and how he began to piece together that she had not been the one to kill the man she remembered. He spoke of the bruises, the traces of blood in her hair, visiting the hospital the morning after for Iris, and the pictures that he'd taken to show her bruises, when she refused to let the nurse examine her. What he didn't say - at the time, he thought they would be used to defend Iris, not Sam, but they were no less important now, even if the accused had changed from the woman he knew to her sister.
And accused of what? Murder still involved secrets in his mind, hiding it. It didn't involve one sister protecting another - that was just death. Everyone else died, it was a natural point in life - but he knew that the law didn't understand it that way. There were variances, nuances, it had to be proved, evidence taken in because anyone could lie now and the truth was not so valuable a thing.
He would have been well within his rights to be pissed about the lies Iris had told him about the incident, but he wasn't, and there was no anger evident in his voice. She'd been trying to help Sam, and he understood that, respected it. Besides, the anger would not help anything in this situation. It was far more beneficial to look a few hours ahead, when they'd all be on the floor in the great room, dogs piled around him, boxes of cereal scattered between them and their bowls, the milk inside already a half dozen artificial colors before they added more and he did his best to make his daughter shoot milk out of her nose.
It was enough to make his hands relax on the table as he finished his statement. And after they confirmed they had all they needed, he stood up, palms going flat on the surface as he stood. With nothing more to say, he walked out to wait for Iris to emerge from her interrogation room. One officer, female, young, uniformed, a few wisps of hair poking out of her chignon, hurried by. Another stopped to talk to a young couple - all signs of life continuing, but every few seconds, his gaze drifted back to that door and as soon as it cracked open, he stepped forward, ready to take her home.
It felt like it took forever for Iris to complete her interview, and by the time she was done, she was well past being wrung out of energy and strength. It was a relief to be let out of the interview room (the walls having started to feel like a trap, even though she logically knew this time that they wouldn't be keeping her), and more of a relief to look across the station to see Manning waiting for her. A few more words from the detective, a nod of her head, and she was walking towards him, surprised to see the way he immediately stepped forward - towards her instead of away.
Tired, tired, the thought beat through her mind to drown out the usual sort of rolling mental turmoil that was usually there. It shut down her awareness of other people, it shut down the internal monologue that was always there to eat away at her self-worth. It pushed down the objections and allowed her to step close to him, wanting his arms to keep the rest of the world away (like they had days ago in that staircase at the bakery). But there was still an outward image to think about (that ingrained sense of how things would appear to other people, planted when she was still so young and now as much a part of her personality as anything else), so instead of leaning into him, letting him take her weight, she reached out instead. Tentative and uncertain, but she slipped her hand into his, fingers so carefully (ready to move away again at the least sign from him) curving around his wider ones. A moment passed where she simply looked at the way she held his hand, like she couldn't quite believe it, and then she looked up at him.
"I'd like to go home now, please." A whisper, an uncertain request, but a request nonetheless. And that seemed to be the extent of what she had in her, as far as energy and confidence went. She was glad to follow from there - to the truck, to the house, and into a morning where they did exactly what he'd suggested. Sugary cereal and cartoons with Miss TJ, and she felt herself (in certain, brief moments) actually calm and smiling just a bit.