Chapter 6: We Meet Again

Its been 10 years since I graduated high school. I’m now 28 and life is going great. After high school I moved to another state to focus on my studies of becoming a detective. I’m back home and I’ve been here for a re months settli in and I’ve been given a case about a woman who apparently murdered her physically abusive husband in self defense. I walk into the police department and go up to a coworker of mine, Ashley. She’s helping me with this case and can’t seem to find anything that proves this woman’s husband was abusive towards her as she has no injuries or any proof to confirm what she says.

“So what, you think she killed him out of anger perhaps? Or maybe she killed him because she had an affair.” I tell her, as I look trough the files of the case. “That’s what I was thinking. An affair seems like the most accurate assumption.” We go on about different possibilities before we decide to bring this woman in for further questioning. I let Ashley do the questioning since I know I would resort to violence if she continuously lied to me in my face. Ashely comes back up to me. “She changed her story. Apparently now her husband wasn’t physically abusive but mentally and verbally abusive. Told her to kill herself and that she was useless, things along those lines. Also according to her he never dared to lay a finger on her, even though she claimed he would beat her when she was discovered at the scene of the crime.” I just sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose in irrtation. “Well she’s clearly lying. Now we need to prove why she actually killed him.” Ashley handed me a notebook in which she wrote all of what she knew down and proceeds to tell me to look through it for further information about the questioning. She also told me the video of the questioning that was being downloaded to her computer and that I could go watch it whenever. I thank her and move to my desk to look through the notes provided before watching the video.

The video shows the woman. I can hear Ashley in the background speaking to her. “Why did you kill your husband, Linda?” The woman begins crying as she claims her husband was abusive, as we know. As the questioning continues she never specifically says physically abusive but sticks to just saying abusive, and when Ashley asks if she was beat by her husband or hurt physically by him in any way she just cries saying he was abusive as if dodging the question. After finishing the video I hear Ashley walk up behind me. “Hey Olivia, chief just told me that we have a new detective coming in. Apparently I’m being moved to a different case and hus new guys gonna help you with this one. Just go talk to chief he’ll explain.” I was confused as to why he would do this but I just shrug it off and go to his office where he explains we have a new detective. Basically what Ashley told me. I ask him why we’re moving Ashely from this case and switching her to a new one and he claims it’s because this case is taking far too long to solve and he wants to see if this will be a good choice. This new guy is coming in tomorrow so I need to prepare myself to explain the case to him. This was all new but wasn’t that bad. As long as he’s a nice guy is all I hoped.

The next day I come to the police department expecting to see a new face but my eyes land on someone who I knew all too well. He looks at me and his expression mirrors mine with shock and irritation. I snap back to reality and speak up. “Alex? Alexander Payne?” He stands up and extends his hand. Despite looking slightly annoyed he’s acting mature enough. I mean he should as we are both grown adults. “Nice to see you again.” He says as I shake his hand. He clearly doesn’t mean it. “So you also became a detective. What a coincidence.” I say as I sit down at my desk which is right I front of his. He doesn’t respond as he sits down as well. I hand him the file for the case before giving him a brief summary of what we know so far. After looking through it he looks up at me. “So she killed her husband and when discovered at the crime scene she claimed he was physically abusive but now after having no evidence of physical abuse she’s claiming he was mentally abusive?” He says before looking through it again. “She shot him a total of 17 times? Jeez..” “That’s something that threw me off. That many bullets were fired so either she wanted him completely dead or she was angry. It was reported the officers had to hold her down too.” He looks at me and back at the file before pulling up pictures of the crime scene. It was in their apartment he was found dead in the kitchen. A neighbor heard yelling before calling the police to report what they had heard. Once the police arrived they found Linda with the gun at hand and her husband who was confirmed dead at the scene.

“If she was being abused would she have fought back this one night? I mean I guess she could’ve grown annoyed and finally snapped with him but most women who are abused by their spouses kill them when they’re unaware so they can’t fight back.” He says clearly deep in thought wondering the true story behind this case.

“Remember he was “mentally” and “verbally” abusive. Not physically abusive which means she didn’t fear him in violence but more with his cruel words.” I just watch as he agrees before he tells me the only issue with her story is that she changed it. I agree with him 100 percent of course, somethin here feels off and its not just the fact that she lied.

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