Justice

Summary: A police officer questions a suspect
Warning(s): Some references to violence
Author’s Note: A slightly different way of telling a story. I really hope you like this format!

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Transcript from an interview with a suspect, dated December 17th 2001

Detective Raven: This is Detective Caleb Raven, interviewing the suspect Dorian Winters on December 17th 2001, starting at nine am. (Pause) Please state your name for the record.

Winters: Dorian Winters.

Detective Raven: Thank you. Do you understand your rights? You’ve waived your right to an attorney. Whatever you say in this room, while we’re recording, is going to be admissible in court. Do you understand?

Winters: Yeah.

Detective Raven: You seem on edge. Tapping your foot. Face pale. Dark circles under your eyes. Haven’t been sleeping well?

Silence.

Winters: (Whispering) I haven’t slept well since…it happened.

Detective Raven: The hit and run.

Winters: I didn’t mean to.

Detective Raven: You hit a teenaged girl who was walking home late at night. She was walking home from her prom, after getting into an argument with her date. It was late at night. Maybe you’d had a drink or two. (Pause) You didn’t do it on purpose, did you? It was an accident. You hit her and then you panicked. Of course you did. Who wouldn’t?

Winters: I didn’t do anything.

Detective Raven: (Sighs) We can go around in circles with this all night. All it’ll do is waste your time and mine. I know it was you who was responsible for the hit and run.

Winters: I didn’t do it.

Silence.

Winters: I didn’t do anything. I didn’t…I didn’t do it. (Something slams against a solid surface) Stop telling me I did!

Detective Raven: (Calmly) Sit down, Mr. Winters. This is the first time we’ve spoken about this. To the best of my knowledge, I’m the first person to bring you in for questioning about this case. (Pause) Has someone else been accusing you of the hit and run?

Silence.

Detective Raven: Mr. Winters, I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.

A chair scrapes across the floor.

Winters: (Faintly) You don’t see her?

Detective Raven: See who?

Winters: (Draws breath in sharply) I keep seeing her. All the time now. Wearing that same dress. I didn’t see her until…until I hit her with my car. Now I can’t stop seeing her.

Detective Raven: Do you see her now?

Winters: (Laughs) Aren’t you going to tell me I’m crazy?

Detective Raven: I’ve seen too much in this world that can’t be explained away by science or logic.

Winters: (Whispers) You’ve seen her?

Detective Raven: I’ve seen her.

Winters: I don’t even know her name.

Detective Raven: (Quietly) Her name was Caitlin.

Winters: You knew her?

Detective Raven: She was my sister. My older sister. I was only a kid when she…when you hit her with your car. And then you ran from the scene. Didn’t even check to see if she was still alive.

Winters: I don’t…I was just a dumb kid. I only just had my driver’s license. I didn’t mean to do it. I’d had one beer. Just one. I didn’t even feel tipsy. All I did was take my eyes off the road for a second. And then she was just there. And I…I panicked. Can’t you understand that? I panicked.

Detective Raven: You said you see her all the time. I’ve seen her too. I’m not the only one. Her ghost, her soul, whatever you want to call it. She hitches rides with people. Asks them to take her home. I drove along the same stretch of road. I saw her. I wanted to see her. I thought maybe I could help her get peace.

Winters: Does she know?

Detective Raven: That she’s dead? I don’t know. I know that no one else has ever believed she’s a ghost. Not until the driver takes her home and she…she just vanishes. It kills my Mom. Every time someone comes to our front door and tells her that they picked up a girl, walking home from a party. Picked up Caitlin. She can’t heal. Every single time, it rips open that wound once more.

Winters: I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean anything now, but I am.

Detective Raven: I believe she’s trapped. That she doesn’t realise or understand that she’s dead. She’s still stuck in those couple of hours, trying to get home.

Winters: And she doesn’t know who you are?

Detective Raven: Of course not. Because her soul remembers her brother as a ten-year-old geeky kid. Not as a police officer.

Winters: Maybe justice will help her soul to finally be at peace.

Detective Raven: I can only hope you’re right. From all of the sightings I have heard, she can’t be at peace until she’s returned home. But as soon as a car arrives at the house, she’s gone. I attempted to talk to her, but it was like speaking to a dream. She didn’t seem to even hear me.

Winters: What if…?

Detective Raven: What?

Winters: What if I drove there? In the car that…the one I was driving that night. It’s older now, but it still runs. Maybe if I was the one who gave her a lift. Could it work? Could it make her finally be at peace?

Detective Raven: It could work.

Winters: It’s worth a try. Isn’t it?

Detective Raven: You’re under arrest. I can’t let you just walk out of the precinct.

Winters: I’m not asking you to just let me walk out on my own. You could come with me. Sit in the passenger seat. I’ll stop. Give her a lift. Drive her back to your house. And then, maybe, it’ll be over. She’ll be at peace. Your family will be at peace. It’s got to be worth a try. Hasn’t it?

Detective Raven: I can’t tell the Captain that I’m leaving with a suspect to try and put my sister’s ghost to rest. He’ll think I’ve lost my mind. (Pause) Maybe I can tell him that I need to take a look at the car involved in the hit and run, though.

Winters: Yeah. You do that.

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5th January 2002

Paranormal Sightings: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Hello everyone and I hope you all had a good New Year!

I think it’s time to close this thread to new replies. After having received multiple reports of a decrease in sightings of the hitchhiker, I went to look for myself. And there’s no sign of the ghost. No spirit asking for a ride home.

For those who are interested, a very recent news article detailed the arrest of Dorian Winters for a hit and run that had been unsolved for nearly two decades. The arresting officer was the younger brother of the girl who’d been killed when walking home late at night from prom.

Please find below the link to the article.

Your friendly neighbourhood mod.

The End